REVIEW A review of the MHC genetics of rheumatoid arthritis

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1 (2004) 5, & 2004 Nature Publishing Group All rights reserved /04 $ REVIEW A review of the MHC genetics of rheumatoid arthritis JL Newton 1, SMJ Harney 1, BP Wordsworth 1 and MA Brown 1 1 Institute of Musculoskeletal Sciences, University of Oxford, The Botnar Research Centre, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Headington, Oxford, UK Rheumatoid arthritis is a common complex genetic disease, and, despite a significant genetic element, no gene other than HLA-DRB1 has been clearly demonstrated to be involved in the disease. However, this association accounts for less than half the overall genetic susceptibility. Investigation of other candidate genes, in particular those that reside within the major histocompatibility complex, are hampered by the presence of strong linkage disequilibrium and problems with study design. (2004) 5, doi: /sj.gene Published online 29 January 2004 Keywords: major histocompatibility complex; rheumatoid arthritis, genetics The genetic contribution to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) RA has a strong genetic component but the exact heritability is uncertain. The best estimates of heritability come from twin studies. The reported concordance rates have varied between studies, most likely because of differences in the severity of the cases studied. The MZ concordance rate for RA is four times greater than the dizygotic (DZ) twin concordance rate, indicating a heritability of 40 60%. 1 3 The overall MZ twin concordance rate is 12 15%. These twin studies provide an upper limit to the genetic contribution to RA. Studies including twins with milder disease have found lower MZ concordance rates, most likely because HLA-DRB1, clearly the major gene in RA, significantly affects disease severity. 4 Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) The only region of the genome that has been consistently shown to be associated with disease is the MHC. The MHC, situated on chromosome 6 (6p21.3), extends over 3.6 Mb (Figure 1). It is divided into three regions, classes I, II and III. The class I region, at the telomeric end of the MHC, contains the HLA class 1 genes, HLA-A, -B and C, and extends over 2000 kb. In the HLA class II region are the HLA-DR, -DP and -DQ loci, encoding the a and b chains of the various HLA class II molecules. The class III region lies between the class I and II regions. The MHC is a highly gene dense region containing about 220 genes, many of which have immunoregulatory functions. 5 Correspondence: MA Brown, Institute of Musculoskeletal Sciences, University of Oxford, The Botnar Research Centre, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Windmill Road, Headington, Oxford, UK. mbrown@well.ox.ac.uk Received 08 September 2003; revised 03 November 2003; accepted 04 November 2003 The shared epitope (SE) hypothesis The association of RA with HLA-Dw4 was first reported by Stastny in The development of higher resolution HLA-DRB1 genotyping led to the demonstration that different HLA-DR4 alleles are not equally associated with RA. Further, studies in different populations demonstrated that non-dr4 HLA-DRB1 alleles were also associated with disease. These findings indicated that the complexity of the HLA-DRB1 association was greater than supposed previously. Gregerson and co-workers first reported a unifying hypothesis for the association of different HLA-DRB1 specificities associated with RA, termed the SE hypothesis. They demonstrated that RA is associated with specific HLA-DRB1 (DRB1) alleles that encode a conserved sequence of amino acids, ( 70 QRRAA 74, 70 RRRAA 74 or 70 QKRAA 74 ) comprising residues in the third hyper variable region (HVR3) of the DRb1 chain. 7 These residues constitute an a helical domain forming one side of the antigen binding site, a site likely to affect antigen presentation. The alleles carrying this nucleotide sequence are DRB1*0401, *0404, *0405, *0408, *0101, *0102, *1402, *09 and *1001. In different ethnic groups the predominant RA-associated alleles vary considerably: *0401 and *0404 are the predominant RA associated alleles in Caucasians, *0405 in Japanese and *0101 in Israeli Jews. Association with DRB1*09 has been described in Chilean RA patients, Japanese and more recently UK Caucasians. 8 In contrast, there are other alleles that are negatively associated with RA and therefore provide a protective role (DRB1*0103, *0402, *0802, *1302). 8 The SE hypothesis assumes that these particular class II molecules are directly involved in the pathogenesis of RA, but the exact mechanism remains unknown. If the pathogenic process is the simple presentation of an arthritogenic peptide, a dominant mode of inheritance would be likely. Recurrence risk modelling has rejected dominant models of inheritance and suggests the presence of more than one MHC susceptibility gene. 9 11

2 152 telomeric centromeric Figure 1 FLOT BAT5 DDAH 2 CLIC HSPAIL RAGE NOTCH4 DRB1 TAP2 HLA - E Transcriptional Orientation The MHC region. HLA- C HLA-B MICA MICB NFKBIL1 TNF BAT2 HSP CLUSTER DQA1 DQB1 LMP TAP1 DMA 300kb 1930kb 1110kb Class I region Class III region Class II region A further complexity is that there is a hierarchy of strength of the association of the different SE-positive HLA-DRB1 alleles and RA, and that some combinations of SE alleles carry greater risk than homozygosity for those alleles. For example, the DRB1*0401/*0404 compound heterozygote genotype is strongly associated with early disease onset and a more severe disease phenotype than either DRB1*0401 or DRB1*0404 homozygosity Carriage of DRB1*0401/DRX, where X is a non- SE-encoding allele, has a relative risk (RR) for developing RA of 4.7, for DRB1*0404/DRX the RR ¼ 5.0, *0401/*0401 the RR ¼ 18.8 and for DRB1*0401/DRB1*0404 heterozygotes the RR ¼ ,15 The effect size of the association of DRB1*0404/*0404 homozygosity has, however, not yet been formally compared with DRB1*0401/DRB1*0404 heterozygotes. It is possible that the heterozygote association may prove intermediate between the association of DRB1*0401 and *0404 homozygotes, contrary to the prediction of the compound heterozygosity theory. In this regard, it is important to note that the combination *0404,5,8/*0404,5,8 has RR ¼ 36.2, greater than the magnitude of the association of DRB1*0401/DRB1*0404 heterozygosity with RA. 15 Calculations from the extent of sharing of MHC alleles identical by descent within families suggest that the contribution from the MHC is B30% of the total genetic effect. 16 This may be an underestimate, as in many families the parents may carry more than one MHC haplotype bearing SE-positive HLA-DRB1 alleles. While the DRB1 association with RA is robust, the penetrance of the genotype is low, with B30% of the normal UK Caucasian population being HLA-DRB1*04 positive. Further, in Caucasians, B30% of cases do not carry an SE-encoding allele. Indeed, in some studies of patients with mild disease, no association with HLA-DRB1 is apparent. The absolute risk for developing RA if carrying an SE-encoding allele is one in 35 for *0401, one in 20 for *0404, one in 80 for *0101 and one in 7 for *0401/*0404 compound heterozygotes. 17 Thus the RR is high but the absolute risk is relatively low, and although the associations with the MHC are strong, the presence of the SE is neither necessary nor sufficient for disease to occur. HLA-DRB1*04 or HLA-DQB1*03? As with many diseases with MHC associations, the extent and complexity of LD within the MHC has complicated attempts to define precisely the diseasecausing genes. The serologically determined specificities, DQ3 and DR4, encoded at the HLA-DQB1 (DQB1) and - DRB1 loci, respectively, are both strongly associated with RA in Caucasians. It has been proposed that DQB1*03 and *05 alleles are in fact the true disease-susceptibility alleles in RA, and that the DRB1 associations with disease are merely the result of linkage disequilibrium (LD) with these alleles. Support for this hypothesis comes from studies in collagen-induced arthritis in HLA- DQ transgenic mice. Transfection of susceptible mice with HLA-DQ8 (DQB1*0302 is the human equivalent) resulted in the development of an inflammatory arthritis similar to RA after immunization with type II collagen. In contrast, transfection with a non-ra-associated gene, HLA-DQ6, created a phenotype resistant to the development of inflammatory arthritis Some association studies in humans have suggested a direct role for DQ alleles in RA. 23 However, further larger studies have not supported this hypothesis. 8,24 Milicic and co-workers studied 685 RA patients and a total of B healthy bone marrow donors, and found no role for DQB1 alleles independent of the SE. Several studies have, however, demonstrated the association of the HLA-DRB1*0401-DQB1*0301 haplotype with greater disease severity, positive IgM rheumatoid factor and greater degrees of joint deformity. 25 Therefore, it has been suggested that DR/DQ complementarity may affect the clinical expression of RA in humans as well as mouse models. However, SE-encoding alleles are also increased in these clinical subgroups, quite likely contributing to their more severe phenotype. Carefully designed studies, particularly in Felty s syndrome, also strongly suggest that the primary association is with DRB1*04 alleles. 26 In conclusion, there is no definitive evidence that DQB1 alleles influence susceptibility to RA, but there may be an influence on the clinical expression of the disease from DR DQ complementarity. Other MHC candidate genes Considerable research has gone into trying to identify the further MHC genes, which are likely to be involved in RA (see Table 1 for a summary). The most widely studied locus is TNF, which lies 1000 kb from HLA-DRB1 within

3 Table 1 Summary of the previous MHC candidate gene and mapping studies in RA listed in chronological order 153 Chromosome Year Gene(s) Sample size Result Angelini et al HLA-DP, -DQ, -DR 48 cases, 109 controls Negative Perdriger et al HLA-DPB1 71 cases, 148 controls RR ¼ 2.74, Po0.03 Brinkman et al TNF 13 cases, 88 controls Negative Vandevyver et al TNF 77 cases, 58 controls Negative Singal et al TAP2 Suggest a role for TAP polymorphisms in DR4-positive patients Wilson et al TNF 147 cases, 135 controls Negative Vandevyver et al TAP 82 cases, 66 controls Negative Maksymowych et al LMP cases, 210 controls Negative Wordsworth et al AP genes 60 cases, 60 controls Negative Mulcahy et al TNF 50 multiplex families Positive for a TNF effect independent of DRB1 Hillarby et al TAP2D 89 cases, 64 controls OR ¼ 2.6 ( ) Field et al TNF 98 cases, 91 controls Negative Brinkman et al TNF 283 cases, 116 controls TNF-238GA OR ¼ 4.1 (1.0 17) Vinasco et al TNF 60 cases, 102 controls Negative Vinasco et a HSP 70 Negative Singal et al MHC microsatellites 97 cases, 100 controls Positive for a second MHC susceptibility locus Tuokko et a TAP genes 40 cases, 60 controls P ¼ Vinasco et al TAP genes 60 cases, 102 controls Negative van Krugten et al TNF 112 cases, 138 controls RR ¼ 3.89 Waldron-Lynch et al TNF 23 cases, 10 controls Negative Seki et al TNF 387 cases, 575 controls Negative Bali et al HLA region 60 multiplex families Positive for an independent role of TNF-c alleles Singal et al MHC 97 cases, 95 controls Positive for a second MHC susceptibility locus Perdriger et al HLA-DMB1 163 cases, 146 controls Possible role for HLA-DM alleles Singal et al HLA-D region 20 cases, 20 controls DRB1and/or inappropriate expression of certain DR genes contributes to RA development Martinez et al TNF 52 families TNFa6b5 positively associated with disease Hajeer et al TNF 179 cases, 145 controls Negative Shibue et al TNF 545 cases, 265 controls Negative Singal et al HLA class III region 97 cases, 95 controls Positive for a second MHC susceptibility locus Vejbaesya et al TAP genes 82 cases, 100 controls Negative Jenkins et al HSP families P ¼ Castro et al TNF 79 cases, 69 controls TNFa6 Po Waldron-Lynch et al TNF 33 multiplex families Positive for 308 and 857 depending on the SE status Hadj Kacem et al HLA-DQB1 CAR1/CAR2 60 cases, 150 controls Negative for TNF, positive for HLA-DQB1, CAR1/CAR2 Ota et al kb region telomeric of TNF 120 cases, 248 controls Positive for a second susceptibility locus telomeric of TNF Tuokko et al HLA haplotypes in RA 67 cases, 77 controls Suggest loci outside DRB1 contribute to RA susceptibility Zanelli et al HLA region 132 cases, 254 controls Positive for a second susceptibility locus in the telomeric HLA region Singal et al MICA 90 cases, 85 controls Negative Martinez et al MICA 54 families, 211 cases, OR ¼ 0.39, P ¼ 0.007(TDT), P ¼ (case control) 200 controls Low et al TNF 238 cases, 217 controls Negative Udalova et al TNF 81 cases, 176 controls P ¼ , OR ¼ 1.89 ( ) Cvetkovic et al TNF 154 cases and controls Allele 1 Po0.01 (OR ¼ 1.62) Jawaheer et al HLA complex 469 multi-case families Positive for two additional genetic effects to DRB1 Pascual et al HLA haplotypes 147 cases, 202 controls Positive for a second RA susceptibility factor Okamoto et al I kappa BL 116 cases, 100 controls P ¼ Newton et al TNF 300 cases, 300 controls P ¼ with one haplotype the MHC class III region. These studies have reported conflicting findings, and very few of them have followed designs that would control fully for LD with DRB1. A common approach has been to match cases and controls either for the carriage of DRB1*04or for carriage of SEcontaining DRB1 alleles. The distribution of SE carrying DRB1 alleles, or DR4 alleles, may then differ between cases and controls, because of their differential strength of the association with RA. Thus, previous studies of other MHC markers in RA may have been affected by LD as well as by the effects of the disease association that they were designed to investigate. These two effects may be indistinguishable These problems are not unique to RA, affecting studies of any disease with strong MHC associations. Several different approaches have been taken to overcoming this problem. Using within-family association, studies have compared the transmission of haplotypes within families where the parents carry more than one copy of an HLA- DRB1 susceptibility allele (the Homozygous Parent Test 31 (Figure 2). Thus, for example, if there are two parental haplotypes carrying HLA-DRB1*0401, the

4 154 a b DRB1*0401-TNF*2 DRB1*0403-TNF*3 DRB1*0401-TNF*3 DRB1*0401-TNF*2 DRB1*0401-TNF*2 DRB1*0404-TNF*2 DRB1*0401-TNF*3 DRB1*0403-TNF*4 DRB1*0404-TNF*2 DRB1*0701-TNF*4 DRB1*0403-TNF*4 DRB1*0403-TNF*3 Figure 2 TDT studies of the MHC. Standard TDT compares the transmitted and untransmitted allele frequencies. In (a), if looking at the TNF alleles only, there may appear to be an overtransmission of TNF*2, but when the DRB1 data are included it becomes clear that this is likely just to represent overtransmission of DRB1 SE carrying alleles. In (b), each parent is homozygous for the same DRB1 allele so the role of the TNF alleles can be specifically examined. preferential transmission of one of those haplotypes compared with the other may indicate the presence of a further susceptibility allele on the overtransmitted haplotype. This approach has been used with success in type I diabetes, but requires very large sample sizes to obtain sufficient informative families. A further approach is to pool on the basis of carriage of specific DRB1 alleles (ie antigen positivity ), but this assumes that both cases and controls are in Hardy Weinberg equilibrium. In RA cases, the DRB1 alleles are not in Hardy Weinberg equilibrium due to the strong disease association of this locus, and therefore such studies are still susceptible to bias due to LD with DRB1. Lastly, a form of logistic regression applied to the transmission disequilibrium test has been developed, which allows comparison of transmission rates of haplotypes identical at the candidate locus, but different at the secondary locus. This method loses power rapidly with increasing LD such as one would expect across the MHC, and is therefore not ideal for this application. 32 Full matching of haplotypes in cases and controls at HLA-DRB1 does effectively control for LD. Until recently, such haplotypic studies have required the use of families for both cases and controls. Although the nontransmitted parental haplotypes could be used as controls, this method requires large data sets to obtain sufficient power. Further, as described below, the nontransmitted maternal SE-bearing haplotypes may not be randomly distributed, and may influence disease susceptibility themselves, thereby invalidating their use as a control group. The development of accurate Bayesian approaches to determining haplotype frequencies in unrelated cases and controls has permitted a novel powerful and efficient method that overcomes this problem. 33 Using this method, we have recently studied the role of the TNF gene in RA. Studying only DR4-positive cases and controls, the frequencies of different LTA-TNF haplotypes were compared between cases and control haplotypes carrying the same DRB1*04 allele. A single LTA-TNF haplotype (termed LTA-TNF2) was identified as modifying the DRB1 associations with RA; being overrepresented on case *0404 haplotypes (P ¼ 0.007) and under-represented on case *0401 haplotypes (P ¼ 0.007). These results strongly support the presence of an additional MHC susceptibility locus or loci outside of the TNF region. 34 However, as the knowledge of the haplotype structure of this area is currently limited further, large studies are necessary to rule out the LT- TNF region definitively. There is an increasing body of evidence implicating the region telomeric to TNF of harboring additional RAsusceptibility elements. 35,36 Ota et al, using 18 microsatellite markers across a 3.6 Mb region of the MHC and five TNF SNPs, in 120 patients and 248 controls, identified a 70 kb region telomeric of TNF that demonstrated association with RA. No LD was seen with DRB1*0405, but this was only assessed on the basis of carriage of *0405 rather than at a haplotypic level, and no assessment was carried out of other RA-associated DRB1 alleles. Thus this study may still be affected by LD with DRB1. A subsequent paper by Okamoto et al concluded that the true disease-associated variant was an SNP (SNP 96452) within the IkBL gene. 37 No LD studies between the SNPs and DRB1 were reported. It appears that the results from the preceding paper, showing that the microsatellites were not in LD with DRB1, were extrapolated to conclude that the SNPs in this region were also not in LD. In British Caucasians, this SNP is in significant LD with the DRB1 locus (unpublished data). Okamota and co-workers also demonstrated stronger association of a haplotype of three markers than with SNP If the conclusion is that this SNP is directly involved in the susceptibility to RA, then the strongest association should have been with this SNP alone. The results do provide evidence of an additional susceptibility region for RA, but do not necessarily implicate SNP specifically. Further evidence as to the complexity of the MHC associations of RA came from the work of Jawaheer et al 38 who genotyped a total of 54 microsatellite markers across the MHC in 469 multicase RA families. There was significant association with one microsatellite haplotype on the background of the ancestral A1-B8-DRB1*03 haplotype, a non-se-encoding haplotype. The region of association covered a B500 kb segment of the central MHC, which did not include DRB1. There was also evidence of an additional susceptibility element on the background of DRB1*0404 in the class I region of the MHC. These findings are in keeping with our results showing different disease-modifying elements on the background of DRB1*0401 and DRB1*0404. Singal et al 39 provided evidence for an additional susceptibility region in the Bat2-Hsp region of the class III MHC in SEnegative patients. This study using B100 cases and controls confirmed LD between these microsatellites and DRB1. There was not sufficient matching to control for this confounding effect when analyzing the SE-positive group, but analyses on the SE-negative group demonstrated association with the Bat2 138 allele and the

5 D6S allele. Zanelli et al genotyped six microsatellites residing in the class III region and the centromeric portion of the class I region in 132 RA patients and 254 controls. There was evidence for a susceptibility factor in the region telomeric to TNF independent of DRB1. 35 In conclusion, there is compelling evidence against a direct role for polymorphisms in the TNF gene contributing directly to RA susceptibility and an increasing body of support for additional susceptibility elements elsewhere in the MHC, in particular, the regions telomeric to the TNF gene. This is a highly gene dense region and well-designed haplotype studies that adequately control for the strong LD will be required to finely localize the actual susceptibility elements. Is there a role for noninherited maternal alleles (NIMAs)? As well as the previously discussed associations of HLA genotype and RA, there has also been interest in the role of the NIMAs in RA susceptibility. Even in hospitalbased studies of RA no more than 87% of patients are positive for the SE. A possible explanation for the occurrence of SE-negative cases is the exposure to noninherited maternal SE-positive HLA antigens during fetal development, or even persistent exposure due to microchimerism. This has been investigated by comparing the occurrence of SE-positive or DRB1*04-positive NIMA and NIPA in DRB1*04-negative cases. Initial Dutch studies suggested that there was an excess of HLA-DRB1*04 NIMA in SE-negative RA patients. 40 Studies since then have been divided and there is no clear consensus Combining all five reported data sets, an increased prevalence of DRB1*04- and SEpositive NIMA has been reported in SE-negative cases compared with the prevalence of DRB1*04- and SEpositive NIPA (odds ratio 2.1, P ¼ 0.003; odds ratio 2.0, P ¼ 0.04, respectively). 43 Marked heterogeneity between data sets was observed, and there is a clear need for sufficiently large study to address this question definitively. Conclusion The study of complex diseases is currently the biggest challenge in genetics. For complex heterogenous diseases, like RA, the accuracy and sensitivity of association studies is impeded by genetic epistasis, where the genotype at one locus influences the phenotypic expression of the genotype at another locus, and genetic heterogeneity, where different combinations of genes may produce the RA phenotype. Small sample sizes, subgroup analysis with multiple testing and poorly matched control groups are all potential design pitfalls. With the completion of the human genome sequence, the daily increasing number of publicly available SNPs and the production of high-throughput genotyping methods, the resources available for identifying the genetic susceptibility elements are improving. In parallel with these developments there is also likely to be a flurry of association studies increasing the need for well-characterized patient and family populations and careful study design to eliminate as many confounding factors as possible. 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