HLA‐A*7401 and HLA‐C*0401 ALLELIC DISEASE ASSOCIATION WITH PLASMA CELL NEOPLASIA

Abstract

The present investigation was designed to show the incidence of molecular Human Leukocytic Antigen (HLA) class I and class II allelic specificities in plasma cell neoplasia patients, identified by immunohistochemistry, flow cytometry, and high resolution molecular typing. Plasma cell myeloma is the second most common hematological malignancy (13%), comprising 1% of all cancers. Each year, 21000 new cases are diagnosed with a two‐fold prevalence in African Americans in contrast to Caucasians. Our hypothesis is that plasma cell neoplasia have a significant disease association with selected HLA class I and class II alleles. We found that in African American patients diagnosed with plasma cell myeloma (n=10), 50 % expressed HLA‐A*7401 (p= 0.002) and 60% were HLA‐C*0401 positive ( p= 0.004). In patients suspected to have plasma cell neoplasia ( controls n=50), 6% were HLA‐A*7401 positive and 14% expressed HLA‐C*0401. Our results suggest that persons expressing these alleles are more likely to develop plasma cell neoplasia than are those not expressing these alleles. African American patients diagnosed with plasma cell myeloma have significant associations with HLA‐A*7401 and HLA‐C*0401 alleles. Future studies will be directed to identification of HLA class II alleles associated with plasma cell neoplasia.