The presence of HLA-B27 in patients affected with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) was well established prior to the advent of DNA typing of various genes within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) in humans. However, molecular typing of the MHC genes revealed that B27 comprises a motley assortment of alleles, some of which are strongly positively associated with the disease and some of which are negatively associated with the disease. B*2706 was reported to have a negative association with AS in the Thai population and in Chinese Singaporeans. We report here our finding of an absence of B*2706 in 184 Taiwanese AS patients.

HLA-DR, -DQ specificities were determined by PCR amplification with SSOP in 4560 individuals: Caucasoid Americans (CA), African Americans (AA), Chinese Americans (ChA), Native Americans (NA) and Xiamen Chinese (XC). DR2 subtypes were compared amongst the five ethnic populations. The DRB1*1501-DRB5*0101 haplotype was found to be the most frequent in all populations except African Americans, in which DRB1*1503-DRB5*0101 was the predominant haplotype, accounting for 65% of DR2 subtypes. In contrast to Caucasoid Americans, the DRB1*1602 is strongly associated with the DRB5*0101 allele in Chinese populations. The presence of DRB5*0203 and DRB1*1602-DRB5*0101 haplotypes in Chinese populations, especially in Xiamen Chinese, suggests that various DR2 haplotypes may be generated via multiple gene conversion events together with point mutations and reciprocal recombination. The strong DR and DQ associations are found in DRB1*1501/DQB1*0602 (66.22%) for CA, DRB1*1503/DQB1*0602 (56.58%) for AA, DRB1*1501/DQB1*0602 (30.20%) and DRB1*1602/DQB1*0502 (15.76%) for ChA, DRB1* 1501/DQB1*0602 (41.55%) and DRB1*1602/DQB1*0301 (40.25%) for NA, and DRB1*1501/DQB1*0602 (30.26%) and DRB1*1602/DQB1*0502 (25.81%) for XC.

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A virus strain resistant to R82150, a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase (NNRT) inhibitor (tetrahydro-imidazo [4,5, 1- jk] [1,4] benzodiazepine-2(1 H)-thione), was isolated following serial passage of HIV-1 RF in CEM-SS cells. The virus is cross-resistant to another non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, TGG-II-23A [1,4-dimethyl-1-[5,5-dimethyl-2-oxazoionyl]-naphthalen-2-one), but remains susceptible to AZT, DDI, D4T and phosphonoformate (PFA). DNA sequencing of reverse transcriptase genes from resistant virus indicated that R82150 selects for amino acid alterations Y181C and V108I. In vitro mutagenized reverse transcriptase and recombinant HIV-1 (pNL4-3) carrying either of the mutations have been generated. Genotypic and phenotypic analyses identified V108I as an unreported R82150-associated mutation. Both reverse transcriptase and viral resistance assays indicated that the resistance conferred by the V108I mutation is 7-fold less than that conferred by Y181C.