Affiliations: [a]
Department of Neurology, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| [b]
Rush Alzheimer Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA
| [c]
Department of Public Health, School of Public Health, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran
| [d]
Molecular Immunology Research Center, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| [e]
Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| [f]
Rheumatology Research center (RRC), Shariati hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: Department of Neurology, Shariati Hospital, North Karegar Street, Tehran 14114, Iran. Tel.: +98 2184902224; Fax: +98 21 22884420; E-mail: nafisi@sina.tums.ac.ir.
Abstract: Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune neuromuscular disease with a multifactorial etiology. A major part of the genetic susceptibility belongs to the HLA encoding genes. In this study, we investigated the role of HLA class II polymorphism in disease severity, and treatment response. In our 146 patients, 15 DRB1, 7 DQA1, and 9 DQB1 alleles, and 19 haplotypes were found. Adjusted p-values did not show any significant associations between these loci, disease severity and treatment outcome. Further studies in different populations with a larger number of patients are needed to determine the exact contribution of HLA class II alleles to MG prognosis.
Keywords: Myasthenia gravis, treatment, severity, HLA class II
