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Association of asthma and total IgE levels with human leucocyte antigen-DR in patients with grass allergy

Dept of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, University Medical School of Lodz, Lodz, Poland

CORRESPONDENCE: M.L. Kowalski, Dept of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, Medical University of Lodz, 251, Pomorska str., 92-213, Lodz, Poland. Fax: 48 426782292. E-mail: marek.kowalski@csk.am.lodz.pl

Keywords: allergy, asthma, genetics, grass pollens, human leucocyte antigen alleles, total immunoglobulin E

Received: July 10, 2001
Accepted January 28, 2002

This study was supported by a grant from the State Committee for Scientific Research No. 4P05B07909.

Exposure to grass pollens during the pollen season, reveals in sensitive patients symptoms of allergic rhinitis, conjunctivitis and/or bronchial asthma. It is not well understood why, in some patients, only symptoms of rhinitis occur while in others similar exposure causes symptoms of asthma and rhinitis.

An association study is reported here, where the possible contribution of human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-DR gene polymorphisms to differential phenotypic expression of symptoms in patients with grass-pollen allergy was determined. HLA-DR genotyping was performed by the polymerase chain reaction with the sequence-specific primers method in 82 patients with symptoms of seasonal allergic rhinitis and/or bronchial asthma and 52 healthy nonatopic control subjects.

A significant association was found between HLA-DRB1*02, B5* haplotype and asthma phenotype in patients with grass-pollen allergy when compared to patients with rhinitis only. Significantly higher total serum immunoglobulin E levels were observed in patients with HLA-DRB1*01 alleles in comparison to patients without these alleles.

The data in this study suggest that human leucocyte antigen-DR locus, or other genes in linkage disequilibrium, may play an important role in asthma phenotype expression in patients with grass-pollen allergy as well as in determining total immunoglobulin E levels in these patients.

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