A New HLA‐B Antigen (HOK‐1) Found in the Japanese

Abstract
The HLA-B8 antigen [Ag] is one of the characteristic Ag associated with organ specific autoimmune diseases among Caucasians. Among the Japanese, HLA-B8 positives were apparently extremely rare. By using some HLA-B8 typing sera, a new HLA-B Ag, HLA-Bw4 positive, was found in the Japanese. This new HLA-B Ag, tentatively called HOK-1, showed a phenotype frequency of 3.7% and a gene frequency of 1.9 .+-. 0.6%. This Ag has a strong linkage disequilibrium with HLA-Cw1 among the Japanese.