To determine whether the TAP2 transporter gene, which lies between HLA-DP and HLA-DQ, is involved in determining susceptibility to systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
TAP2 types were determined by ARMS-PCR in 89 white patients with SLE and 156 control subjects.
No particular TAP2 dimorphism or allele was associated with SLE or with any clinical/immunological subgroup of SLE. Furthermore, there was no evidence for significant linkage disequilibrium between TAP2 and HLA-DQ/DR in SLE.
These data suggest that TAP2 is not a disease susceptibility gene for SLE and that the disease-predisposing haplotypes do not extend as far as TAP2. This indicates that any HLA-DP association with SLE must be independent of other class II (DQ/DR) associations.