Relationship between HLA A*02 A*03 association and the risk of childhood acute leukemia

In relation with the increasing incidence of childhood leukemia, the present study aims to investigate correlations between A*02 human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genotype and immuno-hematological malignant pathology. HLA alleles were genotyped by PCR with sequence-specific oligonucleotides (PCR-SSO) technique utilizing an automatic DNA extractor. SSO profile utilizes a PCR amplification with biotinylated primers and oligonucleotide specific sequences, which hybridize with polymorphic sequences of the HLA target locus. This study found that A*02 A*03 HLA association confers a higher susceptibility for a specific forms of leukemia (acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)), but does not change significantly the risk for acute myeloid leukemia (AML).