HLA-A AND -B GENOTYPING IN LIVING RELATED ONE HAPLOIDENTICAL KIDNEY TRANSPLANTATION

Sixty-five haplo-identical living-related renal transplant pairs were subjected to comparative studies for HLA class-I typing suitability between the DNA and serological methods. Our HLA-A genotyping method was highly resolutive and allowed assigning 33 serologically blank specificities and subdividing some HLA-A serological specificities, of which A2 discrimination was considered to be indispensable for the matching analysis because of its high frequency among Japanese. Our HLA-B genotyping method made it possible to identify the 17 serologically blank specificities despite their "low resolutive" capacities. Analysis of 14 DRB1-compatible pairs suggested that HLA-A and -B compatibilities had beneficial effects on the long term graft survival. It was concluded that HLA-A and -B should be genotyped for the matching analysis of the kidney transplant pairs to obtain satisfactory graft outcome.