Association of HLA-A, B, DRB1 alleles and haplotypes with HIV-1 infection in Chongqing, China.

BACKGROUND

The human immunodeficiency virus type 1(HIV-1) epidemic in Chongqing, China, is increasing rapidly with the dominant subtype of CRF07_BC over the past 3 years. Since human leukocyte antigen (HLA) polymorphisms have shown strong association with susceptibility/resistance to HIV-1 infection from individuals with different ethnic backgrounds, a recent investigation on frequencies of HLA class I and class II alleles in a Chinese cohort also indicated that similar correlation existed in HIV infected individuals from several provinces in China, however, such information is unavailable in Chongqing, southwest China.

METHODS

In this population-based study, we performed polymerase chain reaction analysis with sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes (PCR-SSOP) for intermediate-low-resolution HLA typing in a cohort of 549 HIV-1 infected individuals, another 2475 healthy subjects from the Han nationality in Chongqing, China, were selected as population control. We compared frequencies of HLA-A, B, DRB1 alleles, haplotypes and genotypes between the two groups, and analyzed their association with HIV-1 susceptibility or resistance.

RESULTS

The genetic profile of HLA (A, B, DRB1) alleles of HIV-1 infected individuals from Chongqing Han of China was obtained. Several alleles of HLA-B such as B46 (P = 0.001, OR = 1.38, 95%CI = 1.13-1.68), B1501G(B62) (P = 0.013, OR = 1.42, 95%CI = 1.08-1.88), B67 (P = 0.022, OR = 2.76, 95%CI = 1.16-6.57), B37 (P = 0.014, OR = 1.93, 95%CI = 1.14-3.28) and B52 (P = 0.038, OR = 1.64, 95%CI = 1.03-2.61) were observed to have association with susceptibility to HIV-1 infection in this population. In addition, the haplotype analysis revealed that A11-B46, A24-B54 and A01-B37 for 2-locus, and A11-B46-DRB109, A02-B46-DRB108, A11-B4001G-DRB115, A02-B4001G-DRB104, A11-B46-DRB108 and A02-B4001G-DRB112 for 3-locus had significantly overrepresented in HIV-1 infected individuals, whereas A11-B1502G, A11-B1502G-DRB112 and A33-B58-DRB1*13 were underrepresented. However, the low-resolution homozygosity of HLA-A, B, DRB1 loci and HLA-Bw4/Bw6 genotypes did not differ significantly between the two groups.

CONCLUSION

These results may contribute to the database of HLA profiles in HIV-1 infected Chinese population, consequently, the association of certain HLA alleles with susceptibility or resistance to HIV-1 infection would provide with clues in choosing proper preventive strategies against HIV-1 infection and developing effective HIV-1 vaccines in Chinese population, especially for those in southwest China.