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Questions on ‘Sequencing of the MHC region defines HLA-DQA1 as the major genetic risk for seropositive rheumatoid arthritis in Han Chinese population’ by Guo et al
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We read with great interest the paper by Guo et al 1 addressing the HLA association with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Han Chinese. The authors reported that aspartic acid at position 160 of HLA-DQα1 (HLA-DQα1:160D) was the major risk factor. It was accompanied by asparagine at position 37 of HLA-DRβ1 (HLA-DRβ1:37N), which was protective. These results were obtained by targeted sequencing in 961 cases and 1812 controls distributed in discovery and validation stages. The underlying assumption is that sequencing had uncovered new susceptibility HLA alleles. Specifically, HLA-DQα1 has not previously been associated with RA, whereas the most associated HLA alleles and amino acids were …