Sequence capture and next generation resequencing of the MHC region highlights potential transplantation determinants in HLA identical haematopoietic stem cell transplantation

How cells coordinate the immune system activities is important for potentially life-saving organ or stem cell transplantations. Polymorphic immunoregulatory genes, many of them located in the human Major Histocompatibility Complex, impact the process and assure the proper execution of tolerance versus activity mechanisms. In haematopoietic stem cell transplantation, on the basis of fully Human Leukocyte Antigen matched donor-recipient pairs, adverse effects like graft versus leukaemia and graft versus host are observed and difficult to handle. So far, high resolution Human Leukocyte Antigen typing has been performed with Sanger sequencing but for methodological reasons information on additional immunocompetent Major Histocompatibility Complex loci has not been revealed. Now, we have used microarray sequence capture and targeted enrichment combined with next generation pyrosequencing for 3.5 million base pair human Major Histocompatibility Complex resequencing in a clinical transplant setting and describe 3,025 variant Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, insertions and deletions among recipient and donor in a single sequencing experiment. Taken together, the presented data show, that sequence capture and massively parallel pyrosequencing can be used as a new tool for risk assessment in the setting of allogeneic stem cell transplantation.