Significant Association ofHLA-BAlleles and Genotypes in Thai Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Case-Control Study
Autism is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder. Many susceptible causative genes have been identified. Most of the previous reports showed the relationship between the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) gene and etiology of autism. In order to identifyHLA-Balleles associated with autism in Thai population, we compared the frequency ofHLA-Ballele in 364 autistic subjects with 952 normal subjects by using a two-stage sequence-specific oligonucleotide probe system (PCR-SSOP) method based on flow-cytometry technology.HLA-B⁎13:02(P=0.019, OR = 2.229),HLA-B⁎38:02(P=0.049, OR = 1.628),HLA-B⁎44:03(P=0.016, OR = 1.645), andHLA-B⁎56:01(P= 1.78 × 10−4, OR = 4.927) alleles were significantly increased in autistic subjects compared with normal subjects. Moreover, we found that theHLA-B⁎18:02(P=0.016, OR = 0.375) andHLA-B⁎46:12(P=0.008, OR = 0.147) alleles were negatively associated with autism when compared to normal controls. Both alleles might have a protective role in disease development. In addition, fourHLA-Bgenotypes of autistic patients had statistically significant relationship with control groups, consisting ofHLA-B⁎3905/⁎5801(P=0.032, OR = 24.697),HLA-B⁎2704/⁎5801(P=0.022, OR = 6.872),HLA-B⁎3501/⁎4403(P=0.021, OR = 30.269), andHLA-B⁎1801/⁎4402(P = 0.017, OR = 13.757). This is the first report onHLA-Bassociated with Thai autism and may serve as a marker for genetic susceptibility to autism in Thai population.