Comprehensive haplotyping of the HLA gene family using nanopore sequencing

The HLA gene family is the most polymorphic loci in the human genome; it encodes for the major histocompatibility complexes (MHC) which mediates the immune response in terms of cellular interactions with antigens. Compatibility between HLA alleles is thus of great medical interest for recipients of allogeneic transplantations. Traditional serological techniques to evaluate compatibility are now being replaced by more accurate DNA sequencing-based methods. However, short read sequencing data typically result in collapsed sequences representing a mixture of variants from native haplotypes. In addition, most previous studies have been limited to a few highly polymorphic exons of various HLA genes. Here we present haplotype-resolved full-length sequencing of the six most clinically relevant MHC Class I and Class II genes, to characterize the haplotypes of eight reference individuals, using a single MinION flow cell. The results show that full-length sequencing of single molecules enables haplotypes to be resolved to the highest degree of accuracy (four-field resolution). In this study, a majority of the alleles were classified with four-field resolution and could be verified through previously published genotyping studies. These results support the notion that nanopore sequencing could be a viable solution for highly accurate clinical evaluation of histocompatibility.QC 20180919