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Hemochromatosis (HH) is an inborn error of iron metabolism, frequent among Caucasians, characterized by progressive iron loading that, if untreated, causes high morbidity and death. HLA-H, a putative HH gene, has recently been isolated. The large majority of patients so far studied are homozygous for a single mutation, which results in a cysteine-to-tyrosine substitution at amino acid 282 of the protein. A second, less frequent, variant, His63Asp, has an undefined role in the pathogenesis of the disease. Here we report that the Cys282Tyr change accounts for 69% of HH chromosomes in a series of 75 unrelated Italian patients who fulfilled well-defined criteria for HH diagnosis. Sixty-four percent of patients were Cys282Tyr homozygous, 10% were heterozygous, and 21% carried the normal allele. The same mutation was rare in normal controls. The His63Asp variant was less frequent but had a similar frequency …