A Novel Finding of an HLA Allele's and a Haplotype's Relationship with SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine-Associated Subacute Thyroiditis

• Published in: Vaccines (Basel) 2022-11, Vol.10 (12), p.1986
• Main Authors: Sahin Tekin, Melisa, Yorulmaz, Goknur, Yantir, Emel, Gunduz, Eren, Colak, Ertugrul
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alleles; Antigens; Care and treatment; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 vaccines; Diagnosis; Gene frequency; Genotypes; Haplotypes; Health aspects; Histocompatibility antigen HLA; Histocompatibility antigens; HLA histocompatibility antigens; HLA-A11; HLA-A11-B35-C04 haplotype; Immunization; Leukocytes; Major histocompatibility complex; MHC class I; mRNA vaccines; Nucleotide sequence; Oligonucleotides; Respiratory diseases; SARS-CoV-2; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Statistical analysis; Statistical methods; subacute thyroiditis; Thyroid; Thyroid diseases; Thyroiditis; Vaccines; Viral diseases; Viral infections
• ISSN: 2076-393X; 2076-393X
• DOI: 10.3390/vaccines10121986

Subacute thyroiditis (SAT) is a thyroid disease associated with viral infections. Its relationship with major histocompatibility complex (MHC) antigens was shown before. SAT cases triggered by different types of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccines have been reported. In this study, human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genotypes of 27 SAT patients (13 vaccine-associated (V-SAT) and 14 non-SARS-CoV-2-infection non-vaccine-associated (non-V-SAT)) were compared with those of 362 healthy donors. HLA analyses were performed with low-resolution DNA-based sequence-specific oligonucleotide or sequence-specific primer methods. Statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 25 and Stata/MP 14.1 with the hapipf function. Allele and haplotype frequencies were estimated by PyPop and gene[RATE] tool programs. The allele frequencies of HLA-A*11, HLA-B*35, and HLA-C*04 were higher in the patient groups. Both the allele frequency of HLA-A*11 and the haplotype frequency of A*11-B*35-C*04 were higher in the V-SAT group. The A*11-B*35-C*04 haplotype, including all three loci of MHC class I genes, is shown to be associated with the disease for the first time, especially in the V-SAT group. This finding will contribute to a better understanding of the etiopathogenesis of vaccine-associated SAT and the role of HLA genotypes in the functioning mechanisms of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.