The expression of autoimmune polyglandular disease type I appears associated with several HLA-A antigens but not with HLA-DR.

ABSTRACT

We studied HLA-A, -B, -C, and -DR antigens in 45 patients (from among 34 families), aged 10.2-60 yr, with polyglandular autoimmune disease type I (APG I) and in other family members. HLA-A28 was more frequent in the patients (25%) than in unaffected siblings (16%; P less than 0.05) or in normal Finnish subjects (8.8%; P less than 0.005, corrected P less than 0.2). Compared with the normal subjects, HLA-A28 was more frequent in the patients with hypoparathyroidism (31%; P less than 0.001, corrected P less than 0.04), adrenocortical failure (27%; P less than 0.01), insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM; 66%; P less than 0.01), keratopathy (53%; P less than 0.001, corrected P less than 0.04), and alopecia (40%; P less than 0.001, corrected P less than 0.04), but not in the patients with ovarian failure (9%; P = NS). HLA-A28 was more frequent in the patients with hypoparathyroidism (31%) than in APG I patients without it (13%; P less than 0.005, corrected P less than 0.2). It was also more frequent in the patients with IDDM (66%) than in those without it (21%; P less than 0.05). HLA-A3 was more frequent in the patients with ovarian failure (82%) than in APG I patients with normal ovarian function (22%; P less than 0.025) and in normal subjects (45.5%; P less than 0.05). HLA-A9 was less frequent in the patients with ovarian failure (0%) than in those with normal ovarian function (55%; P less than 0.005, corrected P less than 0.2), and it was less frequent (P less than 0.025) in the patients with adrenocortical failure than in those with normal adrenal function. No association was found with any single DR antigen, but of 4 DR-typed IDDM patients, 3 were DR3 or DR4 positive (P = NS). The occurrence of adrenocortical failure, but not hypoparathyroidism, was familial and associated with HLA haploidentity among sets of affected siblings.