TITLE:
HLA Class I and II Polymorphism in Ivorian Subjects: HIV-1 Infected versus Uninfected
AUTHORS:
Kouamé Denis Rodrigue, Yapo Assi Vincent De Paul, Adiko Assi Aimé Cézaire, Bedi Germaine, Affi Miyossai Roseline, Inwoley Kokou André, Picard Christophe, Dembélé Bamory
KEYWORDS:
HLA, Polymorphism, HIV-1, Ivory Coast
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Immunology,
Vol.15 No.1,
January
16,
2025
ABSTRACT: The purpose of our study was to determine the class I and II HLA polymorphism in an Ivorian population and to evaluate whether alleles are associated to resistance or susceptibility to HIV-1 infection. The study took place from February 2021 to November 2023 at the National Blood Bank of Ivory Coast Abidjan for blood collection and the Immunogenetics laboratory of EFS in Marseille for HLA typing. We used 79 blood samples from heterosexual couples divided into 3 groups: serodiscordant couples, HIV-1 positive couples and HIV-1 negative couples. HLA phenotyping was performed by next-generation sequencing on the Miseq® platform and allelic frequencies were calculated. Comparison of frequencies between patients and controls was made with Fisher’s exact test. We detected a total of 140 alleles (73 Class I HLA and 67 Class II HLA). The most frequent were HLA-A*74 (0.1266), HLA-B*53:01 (0.1962), HLA-C*04:01 (0.2848), HLA-DRB1*07:01 (0.1202), DQA1* 01:02 (0.2848), HLA-DQB1*02:02(0.2025), DPA1*02:01 (0.3861) and HLA-DPB1*01:01 (0.4051). Allelic frequencies were not statistically different between HIV-1 positive and negative subjects. However, we observed alleles present only in subjects living with HIV-1. This study presents for the first time high-resolution typing data of class I and II HLA alleles in Ivory Coast. We found alleles present only in HIV-1 positive subjects and others only in HIV-1 negative exposed partners suggesting their role in resistance or susceptibility to HIV-1 infection.