The autoimmune dermatologic disease pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is associated with the serotypes HLA-DR4 and HLA-DRw6. Based on nucleotide sequence and oligonucleotide probe analysis of enzymatically amplified DNA encoding HLA-DR beta chain (HLA-DRB) and HLA-DQ beta chain (HLA-DQB; henceforth HLA is omitted from designations), we showed previously that the DR4 susceptibility was associated with the Dw10 DRB1 allele [encoding the mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC)-defined Dw10 specificity]. The DRw6 susceptibility similarly was shown to be associated with a rare DQB allele (DQB1.3), which differed from another nonsusceptible allele by only a valine-to-aspartic acid substitution at position 57. Given the linkage disequilibrium that characterizes HLA haplotypes, it is difficult to assign disease susceptibility to a specific locus rather than to a closely linked gene(s) on the same haplotype. To address this problem, we have analyzed all of the polymorphic loci of the class II HLA region (DRB1, DRB3, DQA, DQB, and DPB) on the DRw6 haplotypes in patients and controls. In 22 PV patients, 4 different DRw6 haplotypes were found that encode the same DQ beta chain (DQB1.3) but contained silent nucleotide differences at the DQB locus as well as coding sequence differences in the DQA and DRB loci. These results, obtained by using a method for allele-specific polymerase chain reaction amplification, strongly support the hypothesis that the allele DQB1.3 confers susceptibility. This DQB allele is correlated with the MLC-defined Dw9 specificity and is associated with two different DRB1 alleles (the common "6A" associated with DRw13 and the rare "6B" associated with DRw14). Since 86% (19 of 22) of DRw6+ patients contain the DQB1.3 allele (vs. 3% of controls), whereas 64% (14 of 22) contain the DRB1 allele 6B (vs. 6% of the controls), we conclude that most of the DRw6 susceptibility to PV can be accounted for by the DQ beta chain.