HLA-DP Region Is Relevant to Celiac Disease Susceptibility

Genes important in determining susceptibility to celiac disease (CD) are located within or near the HLA region. Associations were first described with Al and B8, and subsequently with DR3 and DR7. More recently strong associations have been shown with: (i) the serologically determined DQ antigen DQw2, present in 90% of CD patients (1); (ii) RFLPs of the DQ subregion, in particular a 2.1kb TaqI DQA2 fragment (2) and a 4.0kb RsaI DQB1 fragment (3). In this study we have examined a DPA gene-related RFLP in relation to susceptibility to CD, in order to investigate the role of genes centromeric to those already studied.