title: Human leukocyte antigen B58 supertype and human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection in native Africans.
abstract: Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I alleles can be grouped into supertypes according to their shared peptide binding properties. We examined alleles of the HLA-B58 supertype (B58s) in treatment-naïve human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-seropositive Africans (423 Zambians and 202 Rwandans). HLA-B and HLA-C alleles were resolved to four digits by a combination of molecular methods, and their respective associations with outcomes of HIV-1 infection were analyzed by statistical procedures appropriate for continuous or categorical data. The effects of the individual alleles on natural HIV-1 infection were heterogeneous. In HIV-1 subtype C-infected Zambians, the mean viral load (VL) was lower among B*5703 (P = 0.01) or B*5703-Cw*18 (P < 0.001) haplotype carriers and higher among B*5802 (P = 0.02) or B*5802-Cw*0602 (P = 0.03) carriers. The B*5801-Cw*03 haplotype showed an association with low VL (P = 0.05), whereas B*5801 as a whole did not. Rwandans with HIV-1 subtype A infection showed associations of B*5703 and B*5802 with slow (P = 0.06) and rapid (P = 0.003) disease progression, respectively. In neither population were B*1516-B*1517 alleles associated with more favorable responses. Overall, B58s alleles, individually or as part of an HLA-B-HLA-C haplotype, appeared to have a distinctive impact on HIV-1 infection among native Africans. As presently defined, B58s alleles cannot be considered uniformly protective against HIV/AIDS in every population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
authors.forename: Aleksandr
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lazaryan
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lobashevsky
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mulenga
authors.forename: Etienne
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Karita
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: Jianming
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Richard A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Kaslow
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa / Q000453:epidemiology; D044383:Black People; D004198:Disease Susceptibility / Q000276:immunology; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology*; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D015235:HLA-B Antigens / Q000276:immunology*; D015236:HLA-C Antigens / Q000276:immunology; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D012432:Rwanda / Q000453:epidemiology; D015024:Zambia / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D015235:HLA-B Antigens; D015236:HLA-C Antigens