Puren AJ, Ramjee G, Abdool-Karim S, Gray CM; International Conference on AIDS.

Int Conf AIDS. 2000 Jul 9-14; 13: abstract no. TuPeA3094.

A. J. Puren, National Institute for Virology, Private Bag X4, Sandringham 2131, Johannesburg, South Africa, Tel.: +27 11 321 4228, Fax: +27 11 321 4325, E-mail: adrianp@niv.ac.za

Background: A cohort of women on the truck stop routes between Johannesburg and Durban have been found to be HIV-1 seronegative despite working in the sex industry for more than five years. To understand the underlying mechanisms of resistance to HIV-1 in these women, studies were performed to investigate the association of HLA and immunity with protection. Methods: Twenty-five seronegative and 19 seropositive women were recruited into the study. HLA phototyping was performed using sequence-specific primers (SSP)-PCR to assess HLA class I genotypes. Results: We report preliminary data of 13/44 sex-workers. The single allele frequencies in the seronegative group were: A24: 0.31; A30: 0.125; A68: 0.25; B15: 0.187; B58: 0.2. In the seropositive group, they were: A24: 0.1; A30: 0.2; A68: 0.1; B15: 0.3; B58: 0.3. The population background (published data, HLA 1997) for healthy Zulu individuals from KwaZulu-Natal, using the same methodology, was: A24: 0.057; A30: 0.33; A58: 0.21; A15: 0.3; B58: 0.27. It is clear that there is distinct clustering of HLA-A24 in the seronegative women when compared with both seropositive women and background frequencies. Discussion: The study so far has revealed that a clustering of HLA-A24 is associated with the seronegative group. In contrast, the alleles A30 and B15 are found to be less frequent. It is well established that particular HLA alleles and haplotypes are associated with rates of disease progression and possible protection. Our results may reflect certain HLA-restricted responses that could confer protection, which remain to be identified.

Publication Types:

• Meeting Abstracts

Keywords:

• African Continental Ancestry Group
• Alleles
• Disease Progression
• Female
• Gene Frequency
• HIV-1
• HLA Antigens
• HLA-A Antigens
• HLA-A24
• Haplotypes
• Humans
• Prostitution
• South Africa
• genetics
• immunology

Other ID:

• GWAIDS0001449

UI: 102238940

From Meeting Abstracts