Digital HLA allelotyping

Stem cell transplantation is a potentially curative therapy for a number of neoplastic disorders. Successful transplantation of bone marrow, and other sources of stem cells, depends upon the extent to which human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles in donor and recipient are matched. HLA incompatibility can result in cytotoxic T-cell mediated graft failure or graft versus host disease. It has been shown that accurate matching between donor and recipient minimizes both of these outcomes and results in improved patient survival. Therefore, methods for high resolution HLA analysis have substantial clinical impact. Heterozygosity at the HLA loci interferes with current methods of DNA sequence-based HLA typing. We present a novel method for HLA analysis, which we term Digital HLA Allelotyping, or dig-HLA. This method employs a strategy in which the expressed HLA alleles are randomly sorted and individually identified.