Nonelectrophoretic method for high-throughput HLA-DRB1 group genotyping

HLA Hoopla Mutations in human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles are linked to a variety of disorders, including inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, and diabetes. Current HLA genotyping methods include groupspecific PCR, genomic or cDNA sequencing, and hybridization methods, yet none have been successfully scaled-up for use in routine patient diagnosis. In addition, standard single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping methods have significant problems with the highly polymorphic HLA sequences and are therefore not suitable for HLA genotyping. Hampe et al. (p. 148) developed a high-throughput HLA genotyping method that combines allele-specific PCR with nonelectrophoretic PCR product detection. The authors successfully validated their method by genotyping the DRB1-HLA locus (which contains a high density of SNPs and is especially difficult to analyze using standard genotyping methods). This high-throughput method allows genotyping of thousands of patients at a reasonable cost and can be automat...