Hum. Reprod. Advance Access originally published online on September 9, 2005
Human Reproduction 2006 21(1):129-133; doi:10.1093/humrep/dei304
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No association between HLA-DRB1 alleles and susceptibility to advanced stage endometriosis in a Korean population
1 Department of Laboratory Medicine, Inje University College of Medicine, Seoul Paik Hospital, Seoul, 2 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, College of Medicine, University of Ulsan, Asan Medical Center, Seoul, 3 Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, The Institute of Reproductive Medicine and Population, Medical Research Center, 4 Department of Laboratory Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul and 5 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Inje University College of Medicine, Seoul Paik Hospital, Seoul, Korea
6 To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, College of Medicine, University of Ulsan, Asan Medical Center, 388-1, Pungnap-2dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul 138–736, Korea. E-mail: kimsung{at}amc.seoul.kr
BACKGROUND: The aetiological factors of endometriosis still remain poorly understood. While there is growing evidence that genetic and immunological factors play important roles in the pathogenesis of the disease, HLA-DRB1 alleles have been reported to be associated with the risk of endometriosis in Japanese populations. This study was performed to determine whether susceptibility to advanced endometriosis is also associated with HLA-DRB1 alleles in a Korean population, which is the closest ethnic group to Japanese. METHODS: We recruited 100 Korean patients with advanced endometriosis confirmed by surgical and histolological examinations. HLA-DRB1 genotyping was carried out in two steps. Low to intermediate resolution typing was performed by PCR sequence-specific oligonucleotide hybridization method, followed by high resolution typing utilizing group-specific amplification and PCR–single strand conformation polymorphism method. Distribution of HLA-DRB1 alleles was compared with that of 800 unrelated ethnically matched individuals as well as 108 healthy female subjects. RESULTS: Genotyping revealed that the distribution of HLA-DRB1 alleles in patients with advanced endometriosis was not different from that in the two control groups. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of the present study suggest that susceptibility of advanced endometriosis is not associated with HLA-DRB1 alleles in a Korean population, which is apparently not the case in the Japanese population.
Key words: endometriosis/HLA-DRB1 alleles/human leukocyte antigen