Background and objectives
Several recent studies have indicated a second susceptibility locus for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in the telomeric MHC close to the tumour necrosis factor locus, a region containing a number of genes of unknown function including HLA-B associated transcripts 1 and 2 (BAT1 and BAT2) and lymphotoxin alpha (LTA). Several single-nucleotide polymorphisms have been described in this region; however, the influence of each on susceptibility is not known. In this study we sought to examine the association of individual single-nucleotide polymorphisms with expression of each mRNA transcript in response to an inflammatory stimulus.