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Rheumatology 2003; 42: 383-384
© 2003 British Society for Rheumatology

Letters to the Editor

Can hepatitis C virus infection and interferon-{alpha} undo the HLA-DRB1*0402/DQB1*0302 protection against rheumatoid arthritis?

L. La Civita, P. Fadda, C. Gaudiano1, C. Bentivenga and I. Olivieri

Rheumatology Unit, S. Carlo Hospital, Potenza and
1 Laboratorio di Tipizzazione tissutale, Azienda USL 4, Matera, Italy

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

SIR, Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune, inflammatory disorder involving prevalently the diarthrodial joints [1]. Although information on RA aetiology is largely absent, substantial progress has been made on its pathogenesis [1, 2]. Genetic analyses have revealed an association between RA and MHC class II alleles, such as DRB1*01, *0401, *0404, *0405, *1402 and *1001, carrying a similar amino acid sequence motif (70QKRRA74, 70QRRAA74), called the ‘shared epitope’, in their third hypervariable region [3]. However, there exist other HLA-DR alleles, so-called ‘protective’, such as DRB1*0402, . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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