The Association Between Leukopenia Of Graves'Disease And Polymorphism In HLA-DQA1 Alleles

Objective: To investigate the relationship between HLA-DQA1 polymorphism and leukopenia in patients with Graves' disease(GD) in Han Group in Tianjin area.Methods: The HLA-DQA1 alleles were typed by polymerase chain reaction based restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method in 60 GD patients with leukopenia and 60 GD patients without leukopenia and 100 normal subjects. The comparisons of allele frequencies were made between GD patients with and without leukopenia and control group.Results: 1. Without considering the change in leukocytes, the gene frequencies of HLA-DQA10301 were significantly increased(P=0.046, OR=1. 528) while the gene frequencies of HLA-DQA1*0201 and HLA-DQA10401 were declined (P=0. 044, OR=0. 474; P=0. 034, OR=0. 333) in both groups of GD patients than that in normal subjects. 2. The gene frequencies of HLA-DQA10301 were obviously increased (P=0. 027, OR=1. 737) ) while that of HLA-DQA10201 and HLA-DQA1*0401 were significantly decreased (P=0. 028, OR=0. 310; P=0.048, OR=0. 132) in GD patients with leukopenia than that in normal subjects. 3. Although the gene frequencies of GDpatients without leukopenia were different from that in the group of normal subjects. The difference, however, was not statistically significant. 4. The difference in the gene frequencies between GD patients with and without leukopenia was also not statistically significant.5. The difference in thyroxine between GD with leukopenia and without leukopenia was not statistically significant. 6. The difference in the thyroid-related antibodies between GD with leukopenia and without leukopenia was not statistically significant.Conclusion: 1. For Han Group in Tianjin Area, the results suggest that HLA-DQA1*0301 may be associated with the susceptibility of GD, but it was not a key factor leading to leukopenia in GD. HLA-DQA10201 and HLA-DQA1*0401 may be associated with the resistance of GD, but it was not a protecting factor to leukopenia in GD. 2. There was no correlation between leukopenia, the elevation in thyroxine and the positive thyroid-related antibodies in GD patients.