Different HLA class II alleles appear to be associated with SSc susceptibility in different ethnic groups, such as HLA-DRB1*11:04, DQB1*03:01, or DQB1*26 epi (DQB1 alleles encoding a non-leucine residue at position 26) in Europeans[2,6,7], DRB1*08:04, DQB1*03:01, or DPB1*13:01 in African-Americans [6], and DRB1*15:02, DQB1*05:01, and DPB1*03:01 in Asians [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. The gene discussed is HLA-DRB1; the disease is systemic sclerosis.