Human Leucocyte Antigen Class I Diversity among Human Immunodeficiency Virus Exposed Negative and Positive Children in Cameroon.

The link between HLA types and HIV disease progression has been well established with alleles and residues associated to progression or non-progression to AIDS. Vertical transmission rate of HIV in Cameroon is still very high (10%). The aim of this study was to describe the diversity of HLA class I in infants born to HIV infected mothers and to determine the influence of HLA genotype in mother to child HIV transmission in Cameroon. Thirty four HIV infected infants and 28 HIV exposed but non infected infants born to HIV-positive mothers were enrolled in this study. HLA-A, HLA-B, group allele frequencies were determined by low-resolution polymerase chain reaction using sequencespecific primers. Nineteen HLA-A, 20 HLA-B allelic groups were identified in the study population. Among all the allelic variants identified, only HLA-B*44 allelic frequency resulted significantly increased in exposed non infected children (12.5% in exposed non infected versus 2.9% in exposed HIV-infected children, p=0.04). HLA-B*44 may be associated with the resistance to HIV infection upon mother to child exposure.