HLA-A, -B and -DR Allele and Haplotype Frequencies in the European American, African American, and Hispanic Populations in Dallas, Texas: Relatedness to the North American Population

Objective: In the United States of America (USA) population, several studies focusing on frequencies of HLA alleles and their haplotypes have been reported, but HLA data in the USA population living in Dallas, Texas, are reported here for the first time. The aim of this study was to investigate the distribution of HLA in the populations of African American, European American, and Hispanic of Dallas, Texas and its genetic relatedness to the USA populations. Material and Methods: We present the HLA data available from the Transplant Donor Program database of Southwestern Medical Center at the Uni- versity of Texas at Dallas. The comparative study of their allele frequencies, characteristic haplotypes, genetic distances with other Americans residing in the USA is complemented by neighbor-joining dendrogram and correspondence analysis. Results: The results of our study reflect a predominance of European and also Asian rather than African Ancestry for the Hispanic sample, especially those living in South of USA. Conclusion: As new information, our study results show that the largest genetic distances between all USA groups were those of the African Americans compared with each of the other groups in four major races.