ABSTRACT
The analysis of ancient human DNA is increasingly used recently in the study of anthropology and human evolution. Although mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomal DNA has commonly been the target in the field of human DNA study, HLA analysis of ancient human DNA is extremely rare. This study aimed to develop the PCR method of ancient human DNA for analyzing the sequence of HLA. Authors established a new method for HLA-DRB1 analysis by sequence-based typing. Alleles of HLA-DRB1 were analyzed and typed by sequencing with DNA of ancient human skeletons from Korea and Mongolia 3000-500 years ago. The types of HLA-DRB1 were determined by comparing the sequences with those of HLA database (http://www. ebi.ac.uk/Tools/blast2/nucleotide.html). The alleles of HLA-DRB1 of ancient human DNA from Korea and Mongolia were classified by types. The frequencies of HLA-DRB1 types of Mongolia were also presented according to the geography such as West, Central, East, and North. In summary, our method was successful in the analyzing the type of HLA-DRB1 from DNA of ancient human bones. Authors anticipate that many researchers could do their research in a better way to get the genetic information for the kinship analysis between individuals or communities from ancient human bones.