Evaluation of Tag Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms for Identifying HLA-B27 Status in a Chinese Han Population.

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) often presents with an insidious onset and is difficult to be distinguished from other arthritis.1Due to the strong association between AS and HLA-B27,2identifying HLA-B27 status is of great significance for assisting diagnosis in clinical practice. Compared with common methods for detecting HLA-B27 (eg, flow cytometry and HLA-B27 sequence detection methods), tag single-nucleotide polymorphisms (tag-SNPs) for HLA-B27 could readily infer HLA-B27 positivity according to the presence of 1 allele of tag-SNP (eg, the T allele for the rs116488202 SNP),3suggesting a convenient strategy for identifying HLA-B27 status.