HLA typing of HLA-A, -B, -C, -DPB1, -DQB1 and -DRB1 loci of 226 individuals from three metropolitan areas in South Africa.

The aim of this study was to characterize HLA diversity in individuals from clinical research sites in order to better understand T cell responses to COVID-19 vaccines in relation to their HLA profiles. Next-generation sequence-based typing of the HLA-A, -B, -C, -DPB1, -DQB1 and -DRB1 loci is reported for 226 individuals from three metropolitan areas in South Africa. Overall, the frequencies of both class I and class II HLA alleles in this study were comparable to those identified in other South African studies. While a more uniform allele frequency prevalence was noted for HLA class I and HLA-DRB1 genes, an allele bias was noted within our population for HLA-DPB1 and -DQB1 alleles, where three most prevalent alleles accounted for allele frequencies of between 12.3 and 29.8%. Our HLA genotyping data will contribute to an expanding catalogue of HLA data from Africa, which are available in the Allele Frequencies Net Database under identifiers 3826, 3827 and 3828.