HLA-DRB1 among patients with Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease in Saudi Arabia

PURPOSE Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) disease is an immune-mediated disorder with autoimmune insult directed against antigens associated with melanocytes. The genetic predisposition among VKH has not been explored in Saudi Arabia. So, the purpose of this study was to investigate the association of human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DRB1 alleles to VKH patients and to clarify the molecular genetic mechanism underlying the susceptibility or resistance to VKH disease. METHODS Genomic DNA from a total of 30 patients with VKH and 29 control subjects was extracted from peripheral blood, and HLA-DRB1 alleles were typed by polymerase chain reaction and sequence based typing (SBT). RESULTS We found a statistically significant difference in the prevalence of HLA-DRB1 *0405 between the VKH patients and control subjects (p<0.05). Eleven out of thirty (36.6%) patients with VKH had positive HLA-DRB1 *0405 compared to two out of twenty-nine (6.9%) control subjects. However, there were no statistically significant differences in the HLA-DRB1 alleles *01, *0101, *0102, *0301, *04, *0403, *0404, *0701, *1001, *1101, *1112, *1301, *1302, *1303, *1501, and *1502 between the VKH patients and controls. CONCLUSIONS Patients with VKH had significantly greater incidence of HLA-DRB1 *0405 when compared to age and sex-matched controls. Consequently, this finding suggests that HLA-DRB1 *0405 allele might play a role in the pathogenesis of VKH disease.