Influence of Donors’ and Recipients’ HLA Typing on Renal Function Immediately After Kidney Transplantation

Background: The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system is widely used as a strategy in the search for the etiology of renal function impairment.

Objectives: This study was carried out to detect the most common HLA alleles’ distribution in kidney transplant in both donors and recipients, and clarify the association between HLA alleles and renal dysfunction immediately after transplantation.

Patients and Methods: HLA-class I and II alleles typing by PCR-SSOP was performed on a total of 874 recipients aged 40.7 ± 13.8 (male/female: 562/279) and 874 donor aged 27.5 ± 5.3 (male/female: 683/110), between 2006 and 2009 in Baqiyatallah, hospital, Tehran, Iran. In this retrospective, cross sectional study, data were obtained from personal files. Donors aged 40.9 ± 13.6 years and male/female 390/195, while recipients had a mean age 27.5 ± 5.3 and male/female 523/83. Renal dysfunction defined as acute rejection, acute tubular necrosis and Delay graft function.

Results: In this study common alleles at each of the loci for the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I (A, B, and C) and class II (DR and DQ) were A2 (n = 186, 33.8%), Bw6 (n = 196, 47.5%), Cw4 (n = 164, 39.7%), DR52 (n = 161, 29.6%), DQ3 (n = 101, 40.1%) for donors; while A2 (n = 200, 34%), BW6 (n = 235, 38.8%), Cw6 (n = 23, 15.2%), DR511 (n = 174, 30.4%), DQ1 (n = 99, 46.3%) for recipients. We detected a total of 139 case of renal dysfunction among RTRs. By the way only cold ischemic time (P = 0.03) and severe anemia (P = 0.000) were significantly associated with renal dysfunction early post kidney transplantation.

Conclusions: We can predict high risk groups before kidney transplantation and try to establish a screening program for the detection of genetic susceptibility to renal function impairment. HLA typing of the donors and recipients might influence the development of new treatment strategy.