Association of HLA alleles with hematologic malignancies

Abstract Several genetic and environmental factors are reported to be involved in the predisposing or prevention of hematologic malignancies. Due to their high polymorphisms, human leukocytes antigen (HLA) molecules are critical factors in disease predisposition. In this study, we investigated the frequencies of HLA-I and -II alleles in 476 blood cancer patients having acute myeloid leukemia (AML), acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), Hodgkin's disease (HD), non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), and multiple myeloma (MM) as well as 500 healthy individuals to find the possible links between HLA alleles and hematologic malignancy incidence in the Iranian population. HLA-A*03, -A*11, -A*31, -A*66, and -C*17 in ALL, HLA-A*25 and -A*30 in HD, HLA-A*26, -B*45, and -B*73 in NHL, and HLA-B*45, -B*53 and -DQB1*03 in MM were found to be associated with high risks of malignancies. On the other hand, HLA-DQB1*02 in AML, HLA-DQB1*05 in HD, and HLA-A*03 in NHL were found to have negative associations with the disease. Interestingly, HLA-DQB1*04 is associated with the risk of all studied blood cancers. Besides, HLA-B*45 is associated with the risk of both NHL and MM. Intriguingly, HLA-A*03 is found to be associated with a higher risk of ALL, while it might serve as a protective allele for NHL. Future multicenter studies and meta-analyses could find the universal and regional risky HLA alleles for each hematologic malignancy.