Relevance of HLA gene polymorphisms in Romanian patients with chronic renal insufficiency undergoing renal transplantation

BACKGROUND: Chronic renal insufficiency (CRI) is a global public health problem with a high incidence in the Romanian population. In this study, we aimed to investigate genomic HLA polymorphisms in Romanian patients with CRI waiting for kidney transplantation. To determine the existence of a potential strong link between certain HLA polymorphisms and CRI, we also looked at HLA specificity combinations within the same locus or even different loci, referring to randomly inherited allelic combinations rather than potential haplotypes. METHODS: A total of 2199 patients with CRI on the kidney transplantation waiting list were included. A total of 2786 healthy individuals were included as controls. Both patients and controls were assessed for both HLA I and class II genes. HLA genes were typed using the low‐resolution method polymerase chain reaction sequence‐specific primer. RESULTS: Certain class I and class II HLA allele groups, genotypes and haplotypes were significantly more frequent in patients with CRI than in the control individuals (eg B* 40 (p ≤ .001, pc ≤ .001), C* 12 (p ≤ .001, pc ≤ .001), DRB1*14 (p = .0022, pc = .04), C*12,‐ (p < .001, pc < .001), A*01‐C*15 (p = .0003, pc = .03) and A*02‐C*12 (p = .0005, pc = .0486)). CONCLUSIONS: HLA gene polymorphisms could be clinically relevant CRI‐associated genetic profiles in Romanian patients with CRI.