HL‐A Haplotypes of 32 Diseases

Because many reviews on HL-A and disease have appeared recently (McDevitt & Bodmer 1974, Svejgaard et al. 1974, Terasaki & Mickey 1974, Morris 1973, and articles in this issue) we would like to restrict this article to a review of 32 diseases typed in our laboratory. The new feature of this analysis is that the HL-A haplotype frequency was computed for each disease according to the formula given below. Using haplotypes, a finer discrimination can now be made on the genetic linkage of a disease susceptibility gene. Thus, contrary to the common assumption that AS is linked to almost all haplotypes with W27, it can be shown that it is only with certain W27-bearing haplotypes that AS is strongly associated. Moreover, certain common HL-A haplotypes such as En..-Al-HL-A8 and HL-A3-HL-A7 almost never have the AS susceptibility gene.