Intergenic recombination with HLA-C leads to a novel HLA-A*19 allele, HLA-A*2910, that is characterized by a functionally inactive amino acid exchange in the loop connecting the alpha and alpha domains.

This report describes the HLA-A*29 allele (A*2910) that has been identified by sequence-based typing in an 8-year-old Turkish female with leukaemia during search for a family-related stem cell donor. The allele is characterized by a nucleotide substitution (Guanine to Adenine) in exon 3 at position 258, leading to an amino acid exchange from glutamic acid to lysine at position 177. From family analysis and sequence comparison, the HLA-A*2910 allele has arisen from intergenic recombination with HLA-C. Structurally, the amino acid exchange at position 177 is probably functionally inactive due to the location of this amino acid exchange in the loop connecting the alpha(2) and alpha(3) domains.