ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Association of chronic fatigue syndrome with human leucocyte antigen class II alleles

J Smith², E L Fritz¹, J R Kerr³, A J Cleare⁴, S Wessely⁴ and D L Mattey⁵

¹ National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London SW3 6NP, UK
² Tissue Typing Laboratory, Harefield Hospital, Middlesex UB9 6JH, UK
³ Department of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, St Mary’s Campus, Imperial College London UB9 6JH, UK
⁴ Institute of Psychiatry and Maudsley Hospital, Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’s School of Medicine, King’s Campus, PO Box 065, 103 Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AZ, UK
⁵ Staffordshire Rheumatology Centre, University Hospital of North Staffordshire, Stoke on Trent ST6 7AG, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr J R Kerr
Department of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, St Mary’s Campus, Imperial College London, Norfolk Place, London W2 1PG, UK; j.kerr{at}imperial.ac.uk

Background: A genetic component to the development of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) has been proposed, and a possible association between human leucocyte antigen (HLA) class II antigens and chronic fatigue immune dysfunction has been shown in some, but not all, studies.

Aims: To investigate the role of HLA class II antigens in CFS.

Methods: Forty nine patients with CFS were genotyped for the HLA-DRB1, HLA-DQA1, and HLA-DQB1 alleles and the frequency of these alleles was compared with a control group comprising 102 normal individuals from the UK. All patients and controls were from the same region of England and, apart from two patients, were white.

Results: Analysis by 2 x 2 contingency tables revealed an increased frequency of HLA-DQA1*01 alleles in patients with CFS (51.0% v 35%; odds ratio (OR), 1.93; p = 0.008). HLA-DQB1*06 was also increased in the patients with CFS (30.2% v 20.0%; OR, 1.73, p = 0.052). Only the association between HLA-DQA1*01 and CFS was significant in logistic regression models containing HLA-DQA1*01 and HLA-DRQB1*06, and this was independent of HLA-DRB1 alleles. There was a decreased expression of HLA-DRB1*11 in CFS, although this association disappeared after correction for multiple comparisons.

Conclusions: CFS may be associated with HLA-DQA1*01, although a role for other genes in linkage disequilibrium cannot be ruled out.

Abbreviations: CFS, chronic fatigue syndrome; CI, confidence interval; HLA, human leucocyte antigen; CDC, Centers for Disease Control; OR, odds ratio

Keywords: chronic fatigue syndrome; HLA; association

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