Differential Resistance to Paralytic Poliomyelitis Controlled by Histocompatibility Leukocyte Antigens

To investigate whether genetic factors encoded by the histocompatibility leukocyte antigen (HLA) complex influence resistance to poliomyelitis, the pattern of inheritance of HLA haplotypes within affected families was studied. Seventeen informative families were available from a genetically homogeneous, unvaccinated community in The Netherlands after a single epidemic of poliomyelitis. Whereas none of 17 other polymorphic markers deviated from the expected Mendelian pattern of inheritance, the inheritance pattern of HLA haplotypes did. In sibpairs consisting of a patient with paralytic poliomyelitis and a nonparalytic control sib, significantly less sharing of HLA haplotypes was observed than would be expected by chance alone (P = 0.014). The sharing of HLA haplotypes between patients with nonparalytic poliomyelitis and healthy controls did not deviate significantly from the expected value. These data suggest that HLA-encoded genetic factors control resistance to the paralytic form of poliomyelitis.