ISSN:
1744-313X
Source:
Blackwell Publishing Journal Backfiles 1879-2005
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
Notes:
The localization of TNF genes on the short arm of chromosome 6 between HLA B and the complement genes focused attention to that genetic region which harbours many immunologically relevant genes and is also thought to hold susceptibility genes for a variety of autoimmune diseases that are linked to specific alleles of particular loci in the HLA D region. Since the recently established HLA-DR-DQ variation accounts only for part of the genetic susceptibility to insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) we searched for genomic variation of the tumour necrosis factor (TNF) alpha. We have identified a TNF-alpha restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) with N coI and analysed diabetic patients including their families, controls and homozygous typing cell lines (HTC) defined by the 10th International Histocompatibility Workshop. Segregation analysis in families and HTC results show a strong linkage of the TNF-alpha 5.5 kb allele with DR types in particular with AIB8DR3. This tight linkage of TNF-alpha alleles with extended haplotypes and the significant increase of heterozygotes in patients could lead to some explanation of the DR3 association with a variety of autoimmune diseases particularly IDDM.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-313X.1989.tb00494.x
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