Associations of HLA DR and DQ molecules with Lyme borreliosis in Latvian patients

Many autoimmune diseases are associated with variants of HLA genes such as those encoding the MHC complex. This correlation is not absolute, but may help in understanding of the molecular mechanism of disease. The purpose of this study was to determine HLA-DR,-DQ alleles in Latvian patients with Lyme borreliosis and control (healthy) persons. Case patients and control subjects were similar in age, gender and ethnic heritage and differed only as regards the presence of Borrelia burgdorferi infection. The study included 25 patients with clinical stage - erythema migrans and 30 control (healthy) persons. HLA genotyping was performed by PCR with sequence-specific primers. The results show difference in HLA-DRB1 alleles distribution between patients and control subjects. The frequencies of HLA-DRB1 *04 (OR 11.24; p