HLA-DRw3 in juvenile onset diabetes mellitus in Chinese.

Thirty-nine juvenile onset diabetes mellitus (JOD) patients and 57 healthy Chinese were HLA-typed in Taiwan. The incidence of HLA-DRw3 was significantly increased in patients when compared with the control group (R.R. = 5.8, P = 0.0027). The frequencies of HLA-B17, which showed linkage disequilibrium with DRw3, and Bw54 were increased in patients, but these increases were not significant because of the small number tested. The DR antigen associated with JOD was the same among Chinese and Caucasians, which suggested that at least one of the susceptibility genes to JOD would be commonly in linkage disequilibrium with DRw3 in the two populations.