Authors: Margarita PriftiKurti José Manuel Nunes Erkena Shyti Zamira Ylli Alicia SanchezMazas Genc Sulcebe
Publish Date: 2014/01/01
Volume: 34, Issue: 8, Pages: 1065-1071
Abstract
The prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis and its specific autoantibodies varies in different populations This variability depends on the genetic polymorphism of the immune response genes among which the HLA system plays a major role In this context we studied the HLADRB1 and HLADQB1 firstlevel allele frequencies in 100 Albanian patients with rheumatoid arthritis RA and taking into account their rheumatoid factor RF and anticitrullinated peptide antibodies ACPA serologic subgroups we compared them with the respective frequencies in a population of 191 Albanian individuals without known pathology No differences were found between the controls and the RA patient group as a whole but three statistically significant differences were found an increase in DRB104 among ACPA+ RF+ and ACPA+/RF+ patients a significant decrease in DRB111 among ACPA+/RF+ and also a decrease in DRB113 among RF+ patient subgroups Comparing allele frequencies of putatively associated RA alleles in different European populations revealed a significant negative correlation between the RA predisposing DRB104 and protective DRB111 allele frequencies A statistically significant correlation was also found between RA prevalence rates and DRB104 as well as DRB111 frequencies The relatively low frequencies of DRB104 and high DRB111 in the Albanian population might explain the rather low positivity rate of ACPA and RF antibodies among the Albanian RA patients These specific association patterns suggest that this first study of RA in an Albanian population should be followed up to include second level or higher definition of HLA alleles and to compare RA patterns among European populationsThis study has been supported by the Albanian Agency for Research Technology and Innovation ARTI and by the EU project “COST Action BM0803 HLANET” We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers who have contributed significantly to the improvement of the first version of this article
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