PREFERENTIAL INHERITANCE OF HLA-G * 0104/ A *24 IN PRE-ECLAMPSIA M Carreiras, S Montagnani, Z Layrisse Laboratorio de Fisiopatologia, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas, Caracas, Venezuela

PREFERENTIAL INHERITANCE OF HLA-G * 0104/ A *24 IN PRE-ECLAMPSIA
M Carreiras, S Montagnani, Z Layrisse Laboratorio de Fisiopatologia, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas, Caracas, Venezuela.

The possible influence of the non-classical HLA-G products in materno-fetal tolerance
is a subject of intense study from different points of view. We have tested HLA-G and
HLA-A allelic incidence among 25 pregnant women with pre-eclampsia and their neonates
with the purpose to find out if there was antigen sharing between spouses or increased
homozygosity in ther offspring. A control group of 23 pregnant women of similar ethnic
origin and their neonates were tested simultaneously. DNA was extracted from peripheral
blood mononuclear cells using salt precipitation. Amplification of exons 2 and 3 of HLA-G
and hybridization (PCR-SSOP) were performed following the XII IHW protocols using primer
and probes designed by Morales, 1997. Six alleles were present but 75% of the allelic
frequencies were represented by HLA-G *01011, *01012 and *0104 in both groups of pregnant and neonates, with no statistically significant difference between them. A slight increase of HLA-G *0104 (0.250 vs. 0.125) and a reduction of HLA-G *0105 (0.02 vs. 0.11) allelic frequency among pre-eclamptic mothers was observed but the difference was not significant. HLA-G *01011/ A*02 was the most frequent haplotype among pregnant and neonates. Although the HLA-A*24 frequency was similar in both groups of mothers (0.08 vs. 0.05%), HLA-G *0104 was found preferentially with A*24 (17 vs. 8%) instead of A*23 (4.2 vs. 3.8%) among pre-eclamptics compared to control mothers. Surprisingly, the HLA-G *0104/ A*24 haplotype frequency among neonates from pre-eclamptic mothers was 22% while it was completely absent among neonates from control mothers (p=0.035). Furthermore, G*0104/A*23 was present in 20% of neonates from control mothers as compared to 4% in neonates from pre-eclamptic mothers. Our results suggest that the inheritance of the G*0104/ A*24 haplotype might be a risk factor in pre-eclampsia.