HLA PROFILE AND ETHNIC COMPOSITION OF 1000 UNITS STORED IN THE LONDON
CORD BLOOD BANK.
J Brown, A Poles, C Brown, M Contreras & CV Navarrete. Department
of Histocompatibility & Immunogenetics, NBS - London and South East
Zone, North London Centre, UK.
The London Cord Blood Bank (LCBB) began clinical banking
in February 1996 and has so far collected and stored nearly 2000 units.
The analysis of the HLA profile and ethnic origin was carried out on 1000
of these units. The HLA-A, -B and -DR typing was performed using the PCR-SSOP
and SSP techniques and the ethnic origin of the units was ascertained at
the time of consenting the mothers. The HLA types and ethnic origin of
the units were compared with those from locally typed bone marrow donor
volunteers of the British Bone Marrow Registry (BBMR). The results showed
that a large proportion (40%) of the cord blood units were from mothers
of ethnic minority groups compared with only 2% found in the BBMR donors.
This finding was reflected in the high frequency of HLA alleles characteristic
of these groups e.g. HLA-A33, B75, DR10 and DR1404 found predominatly in
Asian Indians; HLA-A30, A74, B42, B53, B72, B81 and B82 characteristic
of people of African origin and HLA-B38, B46 and DR9 found predominatly
in Oriental individuals. These results demonstrate that the LCBB is achieving
one of its aims which was to bank units of rare HLA haplotypes not normally
represented in the established bone marrow donor registries.