HL-A antigens in a Chinese population.

The HL-A antigens of a Chinese population now living on the island of Taiwan have been investigated with reagents obtained from and characterized in Caucasian populations and with antisera obtained from Chinese multiparous women. Both HL-A2, the most frequent specificity found, and HL-A9 appear highly heterogeneous in this Chinese population since groups of antisera used to define HL-A2 or 9 in Caucasians gave discordant reactions. Moreover, new associations were found using chi-square and cluster analyses, further demonstrating the complexity of HL-A in this Taiwanese population. Fourteen % of 1183 Chinese multipara sera and 237 sera from multiple tranfused individuals were lymphocytotoxic and could be placed by cluster analysis into three major groups.