title: Conservation of the α4β7 lymphocyte homing receptor in HIV-infected patients with distinct transmission routes and disease progression profiles.
abstract: The α4β7 is a lymphocyte homing receptor to the gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT). HIV-1 gp120 binds to α4β7 integrin through a mimetic tripeptide in V2 and ensures successful infection of GALT. In the present report, we investigated the presence of polymorphisms in the α4β7 cytoplasmic and α4 N-terminal binding domains and their potential association with susceptibility to HIV infection or disease progression. Subjects displaying distinct categories of disease progression or transmission routes (HIV-positive adults, vertically infected infants, and seronegative subjects) had their ITGA4 and ITGB7 gene segments corresponding to virus binding sites and C-terminal domains PCR amplified and sequenced. An absolute conservation of the studied regions was observed in all patients and controls. Albeit polymorphisms in α4β7 may exist in other regions not tracked in this study, α4β7 activation and binding domains do not seem to be polymorphic and are not correlated with distinct patterns of HIV transmission or disease progression.
authors.affiliation: 1 Departamento de Genética, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro , Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil .
authors.forename: Sabrina H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Hait
authors.forename: Mirela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Darc
authors.forename: Elizabeth S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Machado
authors.forename: Esmeralda A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Soares
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sprinz
authors.forename: Marcelo A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Soares
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D018450:Disease Progression; D018562:Disease Transmission, Infectious; D005260:Female; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology* / Q000635:transmission; D015497:HIV-1; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D016023:Integrins / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D016023:Integrins; C071777:integrin alpha4beta7