Next generation sequencing characterizes HLA diversity in a registry population from the Netherlands

Next generation DNA sequencing is used to determine the HLA‐A, ‐B, ‐C, ‐DRB1, ‐DRB3/4/5, and ‐DQB1 assignments of 1009 unrelated volunteers for the unrelated donor registry in The Netherlands. The analysis characterizes all HLA exons and introns for class I alleles; at least exons 2 to 3 for HLA‐DRB1; and exons 2 to 6 for HLA‐DQB1. Of the distinct alleles present, there are 229 class I and 71 class II; 36 of these alleles are novel. The majority (approximately 98%) of the cumulative allele frequency at each locus is contributed by alleles that appear three or more times. Alleles encoding protein variation outside of the antigen recognition domains are 0.6% of the class I assignments and 5.3% of the class II assignments.