Allele frequency net 2015 update: new features for HLA epitopes, KIR and disease and HLA adverse drug reaction associations

TLDR

The Allele Frequency Net Database, launched 12 years ago, now hosts over 10 million individuals from more than 1 400 populations, providing a primary online repository for HLA, KIR, MIC, and cytokine gene frequency data used in histocompatibility, immunogenetics, pharmacogenetics, and anthropology. This update introduces new sections on HLA epitope frequencies, HLA adverse drug reaction associations, and KIR polymorphisms linked to infectious and autoimmune diseases, expanding AFND’s relevance to emerging research areas. The database now incorporates stricter data‑quality criteria and these new sections, enhancing its utility for researchers and clinicians.

Abstract

It has been 12 years since the Allele Frequency Net Database (AFND; http://www.allelefrequencies.net) was first launched, providing the scientific community with an online repository for the storage of immune gene frequencies in different populations across the world. There have been a significant number of improvements from the first version, making AFND a primary resource for many clinical and scientific areas including histocompatibility, immunogenetics, pharmacogenetics and anthropology studies, among many others. The most widely used part of AFND stores population frequency data (alleles, genes or haplotypes) related to human leukocyte antigens (HLA), killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR), major histocompatibility complex class I chain-related genes (MIC) and a number of cytokine gene polymorphisms. AFND now contains >1400 populations from more than 10 million healthy individuals. Here, we report how the main features of AFND have been updated to include a new section on 'HLA epitope' frequencies in populations, a new section capturing the results of studies identifying HLA associations with adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and one for the examination of infectious and autoimmune diseases associated with KIR polymorphisms-thus extending AFND to serve a new user base in these growing areas of research. New criteria on data quality have also been included.