4th Palermo Conference on INNOVATIVE THERAPIES FOR LYMPHOID MALIGNANCIES
Published online 10 March 2009
Haematologica, Vol 94, Issue 4, 528-535 doi:10.3324/haematol.2008.000919
Copyright © 2009 by Ferrata Storti Foundation
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Turpeinen et al. - Supplementary Appendix
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Turpeinen, H.
Right arrow Articles by Partanen, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Turpeinen, H.
Right arrow Articles by Partanen, J.

Stem Cell Transplantation

Genetic similarity of chromosome 6 between patients receiving hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and HLA matched sibling donors

Hannu Turpeinen1, Liisa Volin2, Lauri Nikkinen3, Pauli Ojala1, Aarno Palotie4,5,6,7,8, Janna Saarela5,9, Jukka Partanen1

1 Research and Development, Finnish Red Cross Blood Service, Helsinki, Finland
2 Department of Medicine, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland
3 Blood Component Expertise, Finnish Red Cross Blood Service, Helsinki, Finland
4 Department of Clinical Chemistry, University of Helsinki, Finland
5 The Finnish Institute for Molecular Medicine (FIMM)
6 Finnish Genome Center, University of Helsinki, Finland
7 The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK
8 The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
9 Department of Molecular Medicine, National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland

Correspondence: Hannu Turpeinen, Finnish Red Cross Blood Service, Kivihaantie 7, 00310 Helsinki, Finland. E-mail:hannu.turpeinen{at}veripalvelu.fi

Background: Matching for HLA genes located on chromosome 6 is required in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation to reduce the incidence of graft-versus-host disease. However, a considerable proportion of patients still suffer from it, obviously due to genetic differences outside the HLA gene region.

Design and Methods: We studied the similarity of almost 4,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms on chromosome 6 between patients receiving hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and their HLA-matched sibling donors.

Results: We observed that as a result of routine HLA matching the siblings in fact shared surprisingly long chromosomal fragments with similar single nucleotide polymorphism genotypes – from 11.65 Mb to 134.66 Mb. The number of genes mapped on these shared fragments varied from 402 to 1,302. Considering the whole chromosome 6, the HLA-matched siblings were apparently identical for 65.2–97.8% of the single nucleotide polymorphisms.

Conclusions: Potentially, genes similar in some transplantation pairs while different in others might have a significant role in determining the outcome after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Key words: hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, graft-versus-host disease, chromosome 6, histocompatibility, genetic similarity.