Sequencing-based typing of HLA-B51 alleles and the significant association of HLA-B5101 and -B5108 with Behçet's disease in Greek patients

: Behçet's disease (BD) is widely known to be strongly associated with human leukocyte antigen (HLA) B51 in many different ethnic groups.Recently, HLA‐B51 allele typing of Greek BD patients was performed to study the distribution of B*5101‐B*5107 alleles in this Greek population, the B51 antigen strongly associated with BD was found to be predominantly encoded by allele B*5101.As it is now known that the B51 antigen can be encoded by 21 alleles, B*5101‐B*5121, we performed HLA‐B*51 allele genotyping among 58 Greek patients with BD.After serological HLA typing, typing of HLA‐B*51 alleles was performed using the polymerase chain reaction‐sequencing‐based typing (PCR‐SBT) method.The frequency of the B51 antigen was found to be significantly higher in the patient group as compared with the control group (75.9% of patients vs 22.0% of controls. In the genotyping of B51 alleles, 34 out of 44 B51‐positive patients possessed B*5101, 13 out of the 44 carried B*5108.In contrast, all of the 9 B51‐positive normal controls carried B*5101.This study revealed a strong association between Greeks with BD, both B*5101, B*5108, provided important insights into the molecular mechanism underlying the association between HLA status, this disease.