Association of symptomatic acute human parvovirus B19 infection with human leukocyte antigen class I and II alleles

To determine the effect of the major histocompatibility complex on the development of symptoms during acute human parvovirus B19 infection, we compared human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I and II alleles in 36 patients with symptomatic acute B19 infection with those in >900 control subjects from northwestern England. The frequency of each of HLA-DRB1*01 (P = .016), DRB1*04 (P = .007), and DRB1*07 (P <.0001) alleles was significantly higher in parvovirus B19 patients than in control subjects. In the parvovirus group, 63.9% carried the rheumatoid arthritis-associated shared epitope sequence, compared with 45% of control subjects (odds ratio [OR], 2.2; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.97-4.8; P = .04), and carriage was associated with fatigue during the acute phase (OR, 4.2; 95% CI, 0.8-23.9; P = .047). All symptomatic parvovirus-associated HLA-DRB1 molecules carry a neutrally charged glutamine at position 10 and a positively charged lysine at position 12 of the first hypervariable region. HLA-B49 was associated with parvovirus infection independently of HLA-DRB1*01, DRB1*04, and DRB1*07.