Japan is an island country, and the Japanese people have had minimal genetic exchange with other ethnolinguistic groups. Consequently, the population is highly uniform and has limited HLA diversity relative to people from other countries. However, Japan has three ethnolinguistic groups, and HLA distributions differ depending on geographic region. To collect an HLA‐rich variety of bone marrow bank donor registrants, it is essential to know the precise distribution of HLA in Japan. We analyzed HLA alleles and haplotypes based on HLA information of 177 041 bone marrow donor registrants. Registrants were grouped depending on the prefecture and region (a group of prefectures) as commonly used in Japan. The prefectures did not show the same distributions, but the tendency was similar for each region. We found that Okinawa Prefecture and the mainland can be clearly divided as haplotypes: [A*24:02‐C*01:02‐B*54:01‐DRB1*04:05] and [A*24:02‐C*01:02‐B*59:01‐DRB1*04:05] were typically found in Okinawa (P = .02, P < .001). Moreover, these types were found almost exclusively in Japan and Korea. Donor registration centers of the Japan Marrow Donor Program are currently located in all prefectures. It is essential to deploy registration centers to collect registrants with a large variety of HLA types covering all of Japan.

中文翻译：

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在日本，HLA多样性对地区骨髓供者搜索的意义。

日本是一个岛国，日本人民与其他民族语言群体的遗传交流很少。因此，相对于来自其他国家的人来说，人口高度统一，并且HLA多样性有限。但是，日本有三个民族语言群体，HLA的分布因地理区域而异。要收集HLA丰富的骨髓库供体注册人，必须知道HLA在日本的确切分布。我们基于177 041位骨髓供体注册者的HLA信息分析了HLA等位基因和单倍型。根据日本通常使用的县和地区（一组县）对注册人进行分组。各州的分布没有相同，但每个地区的趋势相似。A * 24：02-C * 01：02-B * 54：01-DRB1 * 04：05]和[ A * 24：02-C * 01：02-B * 59：01-DRB1 * 04：05 ]通常在冲绳岛发现（P = .02，P  <.001）。而且，这些类型几乎只在日本和韩国发现。日本骨髓捐赠计划的捐赠登记中心目前位于所有县。必须部署注册中心来收集涵盖整个日本的各种HLA类型的注册人。