Accelerating effect of human leukocyte antigen-Bw6 homozygosity on disease progression in Chinese HIV-1-infected patients.

Most HIV-1-infected individuals progress to AIDS within 8 to 10 years after seroconversion. Less than 5% of them, however, remain asymptomatic, although their CD4 T-cell counts stay normal. In this study, our polymerase chain reaction sequence-specified primer (PCR-SSP) based human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-B genotyping of 28 typical progressors (TPs) and 15 long-term nonprogressors (LTNPs) revealed some evidence that an HLA-B locus polymorphism can influence the rate of disease progression in Chinese HIV-1-infected individuals: 12 of 28 TPs (43%) were HLA-Bw6 homozygotes. Only 1 of 15 LTNPs (6.7%) was homozygous for the polymorphism (P = 0.013), suggesting that HLA-Bw6 homozygosity is associated with accelerated disease progression. In contrast, 3 of 15 LTNPs (20%) were HLA-Bw4 homozygotes, whereas none of the 28 TPs were homozygotes (P = 0.037), supporting the conclusion that HLA-Bw4 homozygosity may have a protective role. Interestingly, the frequency of the HLA-B*15 allele was extremely high in the TP group (23.2%), which may be associated with faster disease progression in Chinese patients.