The origin of the Sinhalese population of Sri Lanka is
debated. We subtyped HLA-A*02 in 101 Sinhalese and
observed a preponderance of the rare allele HLA-A*0211
which was similar to reported frequencies in northern
India. Taken with low-resolution typing for the remaining
A, B, C, DR and DQ alleles, these data suggest a North
Indian origin for the Sri Lankan Sinhalese.
The distribution and the frequency of the human leucocyte
antigen (HLA) alleles differ significantly among human
populations (Probst et al., 2000; Cao et al., 2001). Of the
different HLA-A alleles, HLA-A*02 is the most heterogeneous
allele in the family with over 56 different alleles
(Shankarkumar et al., 2003). HLA-A2 is frequent in all
ethnic groups with a frequency of 50% in Caucasians,
34.6% in African-Americans, 36% in Asians/pacific
islanders and 46.9% among the Hispanic population
(Ellis et al., 2000). However, the HLA-A2 subtypes vary
widely among populations, with HLA-A*0201 being
thought to be the predominant Western Caucasoid allele,
A*0205 is predominantly African while A*0206 and
A*0207 occur predominantly in those of South-East
Asian origin (Ellis et al., 2000). Recently, a relatively rare
A2 subtype, HLA-A*0211, was identified among North
Indian Asians (Mehra et al., 2001).
The study was carried out in the Colombo district,
Sri Lanka in which 76.4% are of Sinhalese ethnic origin
(Nanayakkara, 2001). One hundred and one EDTA
blood samples were collected from unrelated healthy
Sinhalese individuals following informed written consent.
Ethical clearance for the study was obtained from the
Ethical Review Committee of the University of Sri
Jayawardanapura, Sri Lanka