Abstract:
Studies on host factors, particularly the APOBEC3G gene, have previously found an association
with AIDS progression in some populations and against some HIV-1 strains but not
others. Our study had two main objectives: firstly, to screen a population from Burkina Faso
for three variants of APOBEC3G previously described, and secondly to analyze the effect of
these three variants and their haplotypes on HIV-1 infection with Circulating Recombinant
Forms (CRFs) present in Burkina Faso. This case control study involved 708 seropositive
and seronegative individuals. Genotyping was done by the TaqMan allelic discrimination
method. Minor allele frequencies of rs6001417 (p<0.05), rs8177832 (P<0.05), and
rs35228531 (P<0.001) were higher in seronegative subjects. The rs6001417 and
rs8177832 SNPs were associated with HIV-1 infection in an additive model (P<0.01). Furthermore
the SNP rs35228531 was also associated with HIV-1 infection in a dominant
model (P<0.001). Odds ratio analysis of genotypes and alleles of the different APOBEC3G
variants showed that there is a strong association between the minor genetic variants,
genotype of the three SNPs, and HIV-1 status. Haplotype analysis demonstrated that
rs6001417, rs8177832, and rs35228531 are in linkage disequilibrium. The haplotype GGT
from the rs6001417, rs8177832 and rs35228531 respectively has a protective effect OR =
0.54 [0.43–0.68] with P<0.001. There was also associations between the haplotypes GGC
OR = 1.6 [1.1;-2.3] P<0.05, and CGC OR = 5.21 [2.4–11.3] P<0.001, which increase the
risk of infection by HIV-1 from almost two (2) to five (5) fold. This study demonstrates an
association of rs6001417, rs8177832, and rs35228531 of APOBEC3G with HIV-1 infection
in a population from Burkina Faso.
