To date, there are no KIR gene-content data available for any OA population and findings from the present study are expected to become increasingly important due to the increasing number of studies showing associations between specific KIR genotypes and various diseases such as diabetes mellitus [34], hepatitis B [35] and malaria [36], diseases that are also common in OA [37–39]. Here, KIR3DL1 is linked to diabetes mellitus.