“…The serologically detected HLA-DR4 molecule can be encoded by 1 of 8 polymorphic variants of HLA-DR4 genes: Dw4, DwlO, Dw13.1, Dw14.1, Dw15, DKT2, Dw13.2, and Dw14.2 (by the 1989 Nomenclature Committee for Factors of the HLA System, these are called HLA-DRB1*0401, DRB 1 *0402, DRB 1 *0403, DRB 1 *0404, DRB 1 *0405, DRB1*0406, DRB1*0407, and DRB1*0408, respectively) (12,13). In some DR4-associated autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and pemphigus vulgaris, disease susceptibility has been shown to be associated with select subtypes of DR4 (14)(15)(16), while in another DRCassociated disease, type I diabetes mellitus, the primary genetic association has been shown to be with DRCassociated DQBl genes (17,18).…”