THU0472 Amino Acid Position 10 in the HLA-DRB1 Protein Associates with Radiological Erosions in Early Active RA

Background Advances in imputation methods have enabled association studies of HLA protein amino acid polymorphisms and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) susceptibility. A recent meta-analysis of this region has attributed most of its association with seropositive RA to 5 amino acid positions [1]. Radiological progression in RA has a significant genetic component. Previous studies have linked shared-epitope alleles to radiological damage in RA; the association between HLA amino acid polymorphisms and radiological progression is unexplored. Objectives To evaluate the relationship between HLA amino acid polymorphisms and radiological progression (defined as the development of new erosions over 2 years) in early, active RA patients enrolled to a clinical trial. Methods The Combination Anti-Rheumatic Drugs in Early RA (CARDERA) trial randomised 467 patients to receive methotrexate with or without ciclosporin, corticosteroids or both treatments in a factorial-design. We evaluated 421 European ancestry patients with archived DNA (passing QC procedures) and radiological data available. Radiographs were evaluated 6-monthly (for 2 years) for the development of new erosions. Genotyping was performed on the ImmunoChip; HLA alleles and amino acid polymorphisms were imputed using SNP2HLA [2]. We evaluated 237 amino acid positions in 3 MHC class I and 5 MHC class II proteins and 255 HLA alleles for their association with new erosions. Association testing was performed using UNPHASED version 3.0.7, which utilises a standard retrospective likelihood model for a binary trait and allows the use of polymorphic markers [3]. A P-value threshold of 0.0002 was applied based on permutation testing. Ethical approval was obtained; all patients provided consent. Results One amino acid position, which was position 10 in HLA-DRβ1 (P=0.0001) passed our pre-defined significance threshold for association with new erosions. Using glutamine as the reference amino acid, the OR for new erosions with tyrosine was 0.443 (95% CI 0.278-0.706). A similar trend was observed for HLA alleles; the strongest association was seen with HLA-DRB1*04 (P-value=0.0002), which encodes glutamine at position 10. The absence of *04 alleles provided an OR for new erosions of 0.513 (95% CI 0.360-0.730). Conclusions We demonstrate an association between amino acid polymorphisms at position 10 in the HLA-DRβ1 protein and the development of radiological erosions in early active RA. Unlike amino acid polymorphisms associating