Introduction: Behçet’s disease is an autoimmune disease with diverse clinical manifestations with vasculitis being the hallmark of the disease. The aim of this work is to study the genetic association between human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class-I molecules of Egyptians with Behçet’s disease and the disease susceptibility and clinical patterns. Methods: Fifty-seven patients diagnosed with Behçet’s disease according to the 1990 International Study Group (ISG) criteria for Behçet’s disease coming from Egyptian origin up to the third grandfather were included in the study. Healthy controls were taken from HLA Class-I case control studies in Egyptian population yielding a pool of 221 healthy controls. HLA Class-I typing for patients was done using Reverse Sequence specific oligonucleotide probes (rSSO). Results: Male patients represented 89% of the sample. Mean age of onset was 25.81 (± 6.7) years and mean disease duration was 9.47 (± 7.4) years. Behçet’s disease was associated with HLA-A*24 and HLA-B*42 (p = 0.001) and highly associated with HLA-A*68 and B*15 and B*51 (p < 0.001). While HLA A*03 and B*52 were protective for Behçet’s (p = 0.002 and 0.007). Interestingly, HLA-B*51 and HLA-A*68 (p = 0.005 and 0.023) were associated with the blinding eye disease. HLA-B*51 was protective from Neurological and vascular involvement (p = 0.005 and 0.032, respectively). Conclusion: Behçet’s disease is associated with HLA Class-I A*24, A*68 and B*15, B*42 and B*51 in Egyptian patients while A*03 and B*52 were found to be protective. Interestingly, HLA B*51 and A*68 could be considered as poor prognostic factor for eye involvement.

Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) remains one of the major complications of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Several etiological factors were investigated. Among these, vitamin D and hence its receptor (VDR) gene polymorphisms have gained much interest; however, the results are still controversial. Using PCR-RFLP, we genotyped VDR polymorphisms FokI (rs10735810), ApaI (rs7975232), and Taq1 (rs731236) in 80 patient/donor pairs according to DNA availability. No association was encountered between VDR polymorphisms and GVHD. Neither was there any impact on survival. Only grade II–IV acute GVHD was associated with inferior overall (p = .01), but not disease-free survival. The controversy between our results and the literature may be attributed to marked variability in the relative distribution of VDR genotypes in different populations. Also different environmental factors, including exposure to sun, may ensure vitamin D sufficiency nullifying the impact of VDR polymorphisms.