IS THE HUMAN LEUCOCYTE ANTIGEN B*5701 PREDICTED BY SEQUENCE VARIATIONS OF HIV-1 SUBTYPE F REVERSE TRANSCRIPTASE?

D. Florea ¹, D. Oţelea ¹, Simona Paraschiv ¹, Mihaela Frăţilă ¹, A. Streinu-Cercel ^1
1 National Institute for Infectious Diseases “Prof Dr Matei Balş”, Bucharest

Abstract

Objective: to evaluate the predictive value of mutations in position 245 of HIV reverse-transcriptase as a marker of the presence of HLA-B5701 in HIV-1 subtype F1 infected patients. Methods: HIV drug resistance testing was performed by using the ViroSeq Genotyping System. Sequence-based HLA typing was used for detection of HLA-B5701. Results: A high sequence conservation in HIV reverse-transcriptase codon 245 was found both in treatment-naïve and in treatment-experienced patients. Wild-type sequence was present in all 4 patients with B5701, but also in 109 (98.1%) of 111 subjects without B5701. There was no significant association between HLA-B5701 and mutations in HIV reverse-transcripase codon 245. Conclusions: Sequence variation in HIV reverse transcriptase 245 position is not a useful marker for predicting HLA-B5701 in subtype F infected patients. Keywords: abacavir hypersensitivity, HLA-B*5701