HLA typing by SSO and SSP methods.

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing, utilising the sequence-specific oligonucleotide (SSO) and sequence-specific primer (SSP) technologies, has been in routine use in many tissue typing laboratories worldwide for more than 20 years since the development of the polymerase chain reaction. Both methods are very useful for clinical and research purposes and can provide generic (low resolution) to allelic (high resolution) typing results. This chapter provides an overview of the SSO and SSP methods in relation to HLA typing.