Objective: To evaluate the role of genetic factor in the development of nonresponder or hyporesponder to hepatitis B vaccine in Chinese people from field epidemiology and experimental study.
Methods: Six hundred and thirty-four susceptible healthy students were vaccinated with three doses of plasma-derived hepatitis B vaccine. Twenty-nine non- or hypo-responders (subjects) and 30 hyperresponders (controls) as well as their 80 and 79 first degree relatives were determined and recruited in the study. The first degree relatives of subjects and controls were then immunized with hepatitis B vaccine and followed up. On the basis of the above results, alleles of HLA-A, B, C, DR and DQ locus were further detected in the two groups.
Results: The non- and hypo-response rate in immunized students was 4.6% (29/634). After administered with hepatitis B vaccine, the first degree relatives of the subjects displayed a 17.9% frequency of nonresponsiveness, higher than in the controls. The phenotype frequency of HLA-DR7 and B54 was 52.2% and 21.7% in subjects, 9.1% and 0.0% higher than in controls, respectively. The extended haplotype B54-DR7 was more frequent in the former (17.0%) than in the latter (0.0%) (P < 0.01).
Conclusion: These results demonstrated that the genetic factor was likely associated with the non- and hypo-response to hepatitis B vaccine in Chinese people.