HLA-DQA1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Moreover, a GWAS of Japanese population conducted by Kumar et al. identified two susceptibility loci for HCV-related HCC, with lead SNPs rs2596542 located 4.7 kb upstream of MICA on 6p21.33 and rs9275572 located between HLA-DQA and HLA-DQB on 6p21.32 [11].