Analysis of microsatellite polymorphism around the HLA-B locus in Iranian patients with Behçet's disease.

We have previously suggested that in a Japanese population the susceptible locus for Behçet's disease (BD) is HLA-B51 itself. To confirm this finding in another population, we performed HLA class I typing using the PCR-SSP method and analyzed eight polymorphic markers distributed within 1100 kb around the HLA-B gene using automated sequencer and subsequent automated fragment detection by fluorescent-based technology with the DNA samples of 84 Iranian patients with BD and 87 healthy ethnically matched controls. As a result, three microsatellite alleles (MICA-A6, MIB-348, C1-4-1-217) and HLA-B51 were found to be strongly associated with BD. Of these alleles HLA-B51 is the most strongly associated allele. There were no alleles that were increased in allele frequency at any microsatellite loci centromeric of MICA or telomeric of HLA-B51. Therefore, HLA-B51 was confirmed to be by far the most strongly associated gene with BD in an Iranian population.