Novel non-HLA-susceptible regions determined by meta-analysis of four genomewide scans for ankylosing spondylitis

We identified novel non-HLA-susceptible regions for ankylosing spondylitis (AS) by applying the genome-search-metaanalysis (GSMA) method to combine the previous four AS genomewide scan studies including 479 families with 1175 affected individuals. Three original genomescans were mainly analysed for Caucasian families and one analysed for Han Mongolian families. Ten bins had both Psumrnk and Pord <0.05, suggesting these bins most likely contain AS-linked loci. The 10 bins are 6.2, 16.3, 6.1, 3.3, 6.3, 16.4, 10.5, 17.1, 2.5 and 2.9. The most significant result of linkage was on chromosome 6p22.3-p21.1 (bin 6.2, Psumrnk <0.000417), where HLA loci are located. By addition of a genome scan of Chinese origin, our GSMA result further confirmed the HLA loci as the greatest susceptible region to AS and suggested that non-HLA loci chromosome 16q, 3p, 10q, 2p, 2q and 17p, may also contain AS-linked loci. The novel loci identified in our result give hints to further studies.