The pathogenesis of coronary artery disease (CAD) is closely associated with inflammation, in which human leukocyte antigens (HLA), especially HLA-DR molecules, play important roles. However, whether various HLA-DRB1 alleles can contribute differing susceptibility to CAD has not been elucidated. In this study, we demonstrated a significantly lower frequency of HLA-DRB1*12:02:01 in the CAD group (9.82%) than in controls (18.22%) after age adjustment (odds ratio [OR] = 0.489, p = 0.0036). Logistic regression analysis indicated that carriers of HLA-DRB1*12:02:01 exhibited a lower risk of CAD events after adjustment for age, gender, and other confounders (p = 0.014, OR = 0.526 [95% confidence interval 0.314-0.878]). The female carriers of HLA-DRB1*12:02:01 exhibited a much lower risk of CAD events both before (OR = 0.424, p = 0.0387) and after age adjustment (OR = 0.302, p = 0.0058). In another female cohort, the frequency of HLA-DRB1*12:02:01 also differed between the female CAD group (8.23%) and the female controls (18.75%; OR = 0.389, p = 0.0116). Further analysis indicated that HLA-DRB1*12:02:01 was not frequent in participants with premature CAD or more diseased blood vessels. In summary, our data demonstrate that HLA-DRB1*12:02:01 plays a protective role against CAD in southern Han Chinese, especially in females. The mechanism behind the protective effect requires further exploration.
Copyright © 2012 American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.