Advanced Research Journal of Immunology and Virology Vol. 1 (1), pp. 014-026, September, 2013.© Advanced Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Antigen specific cellular response in patients with hepatitis C virus infection and its association with HLA alleles

Chinmaya Mahapatra¹* and Anuradha S. Tripathy²

¹Dr. D. Y. Patil Biotechnology and Bioinformatics Institute,Dr. D. Y Patil University, Pune, India.

²Immunology Research Group, National Institute of Virology, Indian Council of Medical Research, Pune, India.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected].

Accepted 7 August, 2013

Abstract 

Host genetic diversity is believed to contribute to the spectrum of clinical outcomes in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The present study aimed at finding out the frequencies of HLA class I alleles of HCV infected individuals from Western India (Maharashtra State). Forty-three clinically characterized anti-HCV positive patients from Maharashtra were studied for HLA A, B and C alleles by PCR- sequence specific primer (SSP) typing method and compared with 67 and 113 ethnically matched anti-HCV negative healthy controls from Western India (Maharashtra State). The study’s analysis reveals an association of HLA alleles A*03 (OR = 16.69, EF, 0.44, P = 7.9E-12), A*32 (OR = 1474, EF 0.21, P = 1.8E-9), HLA B*15 (OR = 14.11, EF 0.39, P = 2.18E-10), B*55 (OR = 12.09, EF 0.07, P = 0.005), Cw*16 (OR = 7.45, EF 0.12, P = 0.001) and Cw*18 (OR = 402, EF 0.05, P = 0.003), with HCV infection chronicity, while its results suggest that the establishment of viral persistence in patients is due to a failure of the immune response and is associated with HLA class 1 allele (mainly, A*03, A*32, B*15, B*55, Cw*16 and Cw*18 restricted individuals), as indicated by the absence of a significant T-cell response. Thus, this proves that associated haplotype influence HCV infection as a host genetic factor.

Key words: Hepatitis C virus (HCV), human leukocyte antigen - HLA A*03, A*32, B*15, B*55, Cw*18, Western India.