Allelic association with ankylosing spondylitis fails to correlate with human leukocyte antigen b27 homodimer formation

Abstract

Expression ofhumanleukocyte antigen (HLA)-B27 is strongly associated with predisposition toward ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and other spondyloarthropathies. However, the exact involvement of HLA-B27 in disease initiation and progression remains unclear. The homodimer theory, which proposes that HLA-B27 heavy chains aberrantly form homodimers, is a central hypothesis that attempts to explain the role of HLA-B27 in disease pathogenesis. Here, we examined the ability of the eight most prevalent HLA-B27 allotypes (HLA-B∗27:02 to HLA-B∗27: 09) to form homodimers. We observed that HLA-B∗27:03, a disease-associated HLA-B27 subtype, showed a significantly reduced ability to form homodimers compared ..