Abstract
We have recently established a cord blood bank at KAIMRCaiming to use these units for stem cell transplantation at our center and worldwide. Our aim was to investigate the frequency of HLA alleles in cord blood units collected at KAIMRC and to compare them with the HLA frequency from normal healthy Saudis.
Blood was collected from cord blood units from consented mothers and DNA was extracted. HLA types were determined using the polymerase chain reaction sequence-specific oligonucleotide (PCR-SSP)method for previously typed healthy controls and by Luminex SSO technology for 163 cord blood units. All samples were typed for HLA-A, HLA-B and HLA-DRB1.
The most frequent HLA alleles in both cord blood units and healthy control subjects were HLA-A∗02, HLA-B∗50, HLA-B∗51, HLA-DRB1∗04 HLA-DRB1∗07 and HLA-DRB1∗13. High resolution HLA-DRB1 typing results revealed that DBB1∗07 was of limited polymorphism all individuals were HLA-DRB1∗07:01 while for DRB1∗04 and DRB1∗13 many alleles were detected including HLA-DRB1∗04:01⧹02⧹05⧹06⧹13⧹30⧹36⧹59 and HLA-DRB1∗13:01⧹02⧹03⧹22⧹34⧹39⧹69⧹79⧹96. HLA-DRB1∗04:05 and HLA-DRB1∗13:02 were the most common alleles.
Our collected cord blood units represent the Saudi population and is a useful source for stem cell transplantation.