PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Maria José Bravo
AU  - Juan de Dios Colmenero
AU  - Antonio Alonso
AU  - Abelardo Caballero
TI  - HLA-B*39 allele confers susceptibility to osteoarticular complications in human brucellosis.
DP  - 2003 May 01
TA  - The Journal of Rheumatology
PG  - 1051--1053
VI  - 30
IP  - 5
4099  - http://www.jrheum.org/content/30/5/1051.short
4100  - http://www.jrheum.org/content/30/5/1051.full
SO  - J Rheumatol2003 May 01; 30
AB  - OBJECTIVE: To determine the contribution of HLA gene polymorphism toward susceptibility to osteoarticular focal forms of human brucellosis. METHODS: A total of 57 patients with brucellosis, of whom 23 had osteoarticular complications, and 73 healthy volunteers were genotyped for HLA class I and class II antigens by a polymerase chain reaction-sequence specific primer technique. RESULTS: The HLA-B*39 allele was present in significantly more patients with osteoarticular complications than in the other patients (35% vs 3%; p = 0.0006, OR 15.684, 95% CI 3.453-71.231), or in the controls. CONCLUSION: The increased presence of the HLA-B39 genotype in patients with brucellosis with clinical osteoarticular manifestations suggests that this genotype confers susceptibility to developing severe osteoarticular focal forms of the disease.