AN INVESTIGATION ON THE DETECTION OF HUMAN LEUCOCYTE ANTIGEN HLA CLASS I LOCI (A, B, C) AND CLASS II LOCI (DR, DQ) ALLELE FREQUENCY IN NEPALESE POPULATION BY NEXT GENERATION SEQUENCING

Introduction:Human Leucocyte antigen (HLA) has offered tremendous contribution to the human population by providing definite and  undeniable facts of immense magnitude in relation to human genetics, in disease dynamics and also in transfusion and transplantation. Materials and Methods: Blood samples of 90 unrelated healthy population residing in kathmandu, a central region of Nepal werecollected .DNA was extracted from the blood samples and  the allele frequency for HLA class I loci(HLA –A,-B,-C,) and II loci (DRB1 and DRQ1) was studied byion torrent Next Generation Sequencing platform using  GenDxNGSgoRworkflow.Further,the comparison between the most frequently detected HLA alleles in Nepalese population with population of neighboring countries were also done. Results: A total of 10 HLA *A alleles, 18 HLA*B allels,11 HLA*C alleles,11 HLA*DRB1 and 4 HLA*DQB1 were detected. The most common alleles detected were HLA A*01(16.67%), A *33(31.67%),HLA B*35(13.33%) B*44(11.67%) HLA C* 04(16.67%),C*07(23.33%),C*15(16.67%).HLA - DR*07(16.67%) ,DR*15(25.0%) HLA-DQ *05(38.33%) respectively. Comparison with population of the neighboring countries and Caucasian population revealed that these common alleles were also present in high frequency in North Indian Hindus and in some frequencies with Mongolian and Caucasian population but not with the Chinese population. Discussion: We believe that this data is the first report of HLA class I loci(HLA A,B,C) and II loci (DR*B1 and DQ*B1)  in healthy population from Nepal and this will provide useful information withdiverse applications in Nepal.