Polymorphisms in HLA-DPB1 Are Associated With Differences in Rubella Virus-Specific Humoral Immunity After Vaccination

Vaccination with live attenuated rubella virus induces a strong immune response in most individuals. However, small numbers of subjects never reach or maintain protective antibody levels, and there is a high degree of variability in immune response. We have previously described genetic polymorphisms in HLA and other candidate genes that are associated with interindividual differences in humoral immunity to rubella virus. To expand our previous work, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to discover single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with rubella virus-specific neutralizing antibodies. We identified rs2064479 in the HLA-DPB1 genetic region as being significantly associated with humoral immune response variations after rubella vaccination (P = 8.62 x 10⁻⁸). All other significant SNPs in this GWAS were located near the HLA-DPB1 gene (P ≤ 1 × 10⁻⁷). These findings demonstrate that polymorphisms in HLA-DPB1 are strongly associated with interindividual differences in neutralizing antibody levels to rubella vaccination and represent a validation of our previous HLA work.