Spondarthritides (SpA) is a group of inflammatory disorders which share certain clinical features and an association with the HLA-B27 allele. In addition to B27, other B locus alleles are also involved in SpA. It has been reported that HLA-B7 antigen was associated with B27 negative American Black Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) patients. So our aim was to study the involvement of HLA-B*07 alleles among B27 negative SpA patients from Western India. Consecutive 416 SpA patients, who were negative for B27 antigen, were selected by strictly following Modified New York criteria for AS and ESSG criteria for SpA. Microlymphocytotoxicity test was done to look for B27 positivity. Serology defined 119 HLA-B7 positive patients were selected for allele subtyping of B locus by PCR-RLS-SSOP technique (Dynal-Reli-SSO typing) and compared with 120 B27 negative normal healthy individuals. Molecular subtyping of B locus among B27 negative SpA patients and controls revealed that HLA-B*0702 (% Allele Frequency (AF) 32.77 versus 7.08; Odds Ratio (OR) 11.527; p-value 4.84E-16), HLA-B*0706 (% AF 6.30 versus 1.25; OR 5.62; p-value 0.003) and B*0720 (% AF 7.56 versus 0.0; OR 43.926; p-value 9.4E-06) had significantly increased among patients as compared to the controls. When clinical characters of HLA-B7 positive groups were analyzed, 50% of patients had the onset of clinical symptom at the age of 16 to 30 years. Analysis of the type of arthritis showed that 42% of the patients were suffering from polyarticular arthritis with SI joint, hip joint and knee joint involvement.

The Spondarthritides (SpA) is a group of diseases which include mainly Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS), Reiters Syndrome/Reactive Arthritis (ReA), Enteropathic spondylitis (Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis) Psoriatic Arthropathy (PsA) and undifferentiated spondylitis (uSpA). AS is a chronic inflammatory disease that begins primarily in the sacroiliac joints and goes onto involve the spine and other large joints. Reactive Arthritis (ReA) is an acute nonporulant arthritis complicating an infection elsewhere in the body, usually genitourinary infection with Chlamydia trichomatis as enteritis due to gram negative enterobacteria such as Shigella, Salmonella, Yersinia or Compylobacter species (Hughes and Keat, 1994). Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) refers to an inflammatory arthritis that characteristically occurs in individuals with Psoriasis (Moll and Wright, 1973). Many patients, usually young adults, present with some features of one or more of the spondyloarthritides but lack criteria for these diagnosis, for e.g., a patient may present with inflammatory synovitis of one knee, Achilles tendonitis and dactalitis of one digit or sacroiliitis in the absence of other criteria for AS. Such patients are said to have undifferentiated spondyloarthritis (uSpA). An association between HLA-B27 and AS was first reported in 1973 (Brewerton et al., 1973) and that with other members of the SpA group was confirmed later (Lopez-Larrea et al., 1995; Kankonkar et al., 1998; and Shankarkumar et al., 2002 and 2003).

There are reports which revealed that the other HLA-B locus alleles have also been involved in B27 positive and negative SpA patients from worldwide. For the first time, Khan et al. (1978a and b, p. 83) found the association of HLA-B7 CREG antigens (B7, B22, B27, B40, B42) with AS patients among American Blacks. Subsequently, these findings were confirmed among AS and Reiter’s Syndrome patients (ReA) by Arnet et al. (1977). Later Ben-Chetrit et al. (1985) showed the association of HLA-B7 and B22 with Reiter’s Syndrome (ReA) patients from Israel. Similarly, HLA-B7 CREG antigens were associated with Brazilian uSpA patients (Cedoz et al., 1995) and the associations of HLA-B7 with Inflammatory arthritis patients from France were reported (Sampaio-Barros et al., 2003).

Genetics & Evolution Journal, CEL-I Endonuclease, Heterozygous Mutants, Homozygous Mutants, Biological Processes, Plant Mutants, Solanum Lycopersicon, Microcentrifuge Tubes, Homozygous Plants, Plant Genes, Cross Pollination, Heteroduplex Formation.