23) Multiple Autoimmune Diseases Are Associated with Particular Alleles of MHC

23) Multiple autoimmune diseases are associated with particular alleles of MHC class II molecules. For example, individuals expressing HLA-DR2 are nearly 16 times more likely to develop Goodpasture's syndrome than individuals expressing other HLA-DR alleles. The evidence to date indicate that these associations between MHC class II alleles and specific autoimmune diseases are due to:

A) Enhanced negative selection in the thymus mediated by disease-associated HLA alleles
B) Allelic variations in non-MHC class II genes encoded in the HLA locus
C) Differences in the peptide-binding properties of different MHC class II alleles
D) Differences in the autoantigens expressed in males versus females with disease-associated alleles
E) Differences in the development of FoxP3+ regulatory CD4 T cells in individuals expressing different alleles