Responses to booster hepatitis B vaccination are significantly correlated with genotypes of human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DPB1 in neonatally vaccinated adolescents

Genome-wide association studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) near the human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DP loci that were significantly correlated with outcomes of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. We performed a case–control study nested in a well-characterized cohort of booster recipients to assess whether genetic variants of HLA-DPB1 are also associated with response to hepatitis B (HB) vaccination. The cases and controls were 171 and 510 booster recipients whose post-booster titers of antibodies against HBV surface antigen (anti-HBs) were undetectable and detectable, respectively. The HLA-DPB1 genotype was determined using sequence-based techniques. The frequencies of HLA-DPB1 alleles were significantly different between cases and controls (p = 1.7 × 10^?8). The HLA-DPB1 05:01 and 09:01 alleles were significantly more frequent in the cases, and 02:01:02, 02:02, 03:01:01, 04:01:01, and 14:01, were significantly more frequent in the controls. The adjusted odds ratio (OR) of undetectable post-booster anti-HBs titers was significantly correlated with the number of risk alleles (p for trend = 3.8 × 10^?5). For the number of protective alleles, the trend was significantly inversed (p for trend = 1.3 × 10^?5). As compared with subjects with two risk alleles, adjusted OR were 0.34 (95 % confidence interval CI] 0.21–0.55) and 0.20 (95 % CI 0.08–0.48) for subjects with 1 and 2 protective alleles, respectively. The HLA-DPB1 02:02, 04:01:01, 05:01 and 09:01 alleles were also significantly correlated with the likelihoods of undetectable pre-booster anti-HBs titers. Our results indicated that HLA-DPB1 is significantly correlated with response to booster HB vaccination in adolescent who had received postnatal active HB vaccination. HLA-DBP1 may also determine the long-term persistence of response to HB vaccination.