Associations between human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles and very high levels of measles antibody following vaccination

Associations between human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes and very high levels of antibodies (or hyperseroresponsiveness) to measles antigens in a genetically heterogeneous human population are poorly understood. We studied the association between antibody levels after measles vaccination and HLA class I and II alleles among 170 US schoolchildren who received one dose of measles-mumps-rubella II vaccine. Vaccine recipients were divided into two groups: 93 recipients who were seropositive and 77 recipients who were hyperseropositive (the upper 10th percentile of antibody levels of all subjects). Out of all the alleles analyzed, HLA-B^*7 (odds ratio (OR) 1.9; P=0.05), DQA1^*0104 (OR 4.6; P=0.02) and DPA1 ^*0202 (OR 4.8; P=0.04) alleles were positively associated with hyperseropositivity, whereas HLA-B^*44 (OR 0.4; P=0.02), DRB1^*01 (OR 0.6; P=0.09), DRB1^*08 (OR 0.3; P=0.04), DQB1^*0301 (OR 0.5; P=0.04), and DPB1 ^*0401 (OR 0.6; P=0.03) alleles were negatively associated with hyperseropositivity. The alleles B^*44, DRB1 ^*01, DRB1^*08 and DQA1^*0104 remained statistically significant after accounting for the effects of other alleles. The results suggest that HLA alleles have important associations with measles antibody hyperseropositivity. These data increase our understanding of measles vaccine-induced immune response and will be useful for future mechanistic work on measles virus antigen processing and presentation in seronegative and hyperseropositive individuals.