Transplantation of hematopoietic cells from unrelated donors can cure blood disorders but carries a significant risk of acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). The risk is higher when the recipient and donor are HLA-DPB1-mismatched, but the mechanisms leading to GVHD are unknown. The HLA-DPB1 regulatory region variant rs9277534 is associated with HLA-DPB1 expression. We tested the hypothesis that the GVHD risk correlates with the rs9277534 allele linked to the mismatched HLA-DPB1 in the recipient.

High HLA-DP Expression and Graft-versus-Host Disease