Population genetics in the Hungarian marrow donors registry: The contribution of minorities

Despite of the huge number of haematopoietic stem cell donors represented in various Registries some patients lack a suitable unrelated HLA matched donor (in HU 12%). Recruitment of certain ethnic minorities has been implemented to increase the diversity of registry. We present result on our comparative analysis of the Hungarian Bone Marrow Donor Registry based on the ethnic distribution of Hungarians, Gypsies and Changos. POPULATION METHOD HBMDR was expanded recently in the framework of EU MADO consortium project with donors of Gypsy (N=176; 3% of registry) and Chango (N=78; 1.5%, not yet registered) origin. Polymorphism of HLA genes and 16 HLA microsatellites was studied at three levels: phenotype, allele and haplotype frequencies were computed. Haplotype frequencies and genetic distances allow us to analyse differences between the populations. RESULTS: Hungarian donors share the most frequent HLA haplotypes in Europe and some others more frequent in Eastern and Southern Europe. As expected, ethnic minorities shows particular haplotypes: for Gypsies HLA-ABDR 1-61-14, 1-57-17, 32-27-16, for Changos HLA-ABDR 24-7-4, 2-44-17: seem very specific from these populations). DISCUSSION: These theoretical findings suggest that donor selection process from minorities increase the registry HLA diversity. More population genetics and statistical analysis would benefit the Registries management. Ethical issues raised by the use of genetic markers in minorities populations should be taken into account.