Identification Of Two Novel Hla-B*40 Alleles, B*40:137 And B*40:158, In Taiwanese Individuals

Using sequence-based typing method we discovered two new HLA-B*40 variants, B*40:137 and B*40:158, in Taiwanese individuals. The sequence of B*40:137 has three nucleotide (nt) changes from B*40:21 at nt 353 (C -> T), nt 355 (C -> A) and nt 369 (C -> T) resulting two coding changes at residue 94 (T -> I) and residue 95 (L -> I), whereas the sequence of B*40:158 differs from B*40:01:01 with five nt substitutes at nt 463 (C -> A), nt 477 (C -> G), nt 499 (T -> A), nt 512 (T -> G) and nt 527 (T -> A) causing five amino acid exchanges at codons 140 (Y -> S), 155 (R -> S), 168 (S -> T), 171 (L -> W) and 179 (V -> E). Our hypotheses on the generation of the two novel alleles are presented.