Identification of a novel HLA-DQB1 allele, DQB1*0326, in a College of American Pathologists 2009 survey specimen.

We identified a novel DQB1*0326 allele from a proficiency test sample provided by the College of American Pathologists (CAP) medical society. This novel DQB1 allele was unexpectedly discovered by sequence-based typing method in an attempt to resolve a discrepant typing result between the CAP survey report and our laboratory report. This novel DQB1 allele is most similar to DQB1*030302 and DQB1*0311. DQB1*0326 has a nucleotide substitution resulting an amino acid change when compared with DQB1*030302 (M to L) and it differs from DQB1*0311 by one nucleotide variation causing an amino acid replacement (A to D).