Background & objective: 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 and class II alleles of HCV infected individuals from western India.
Methods: Forty three clinically characterized anti-HCV positive patients from Maharashtra were studied for HLA A, B, C, DRB1 and DQB1 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.
Results: Our analysis revealed an association of HLA alleles HLA 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), Cw*18 (OR= 402, EF 0.05, P=0.003), DRB1*03 (OR= 4.01, EF 0.08, P=0.01) and DQB1*03 (OR= 3.02, EF 0.22, P=0.001), with HCV infection. HLA II locus haplotype DRB1*11-DQB1*03 (HF=17.64, OR=5.16, P=0.0001) was significantly increased among HCV infected individuals.
Interpretation & conclusion: Our data suggest that among the western Indian population, certain HLA alleles or associated haplotype influence HCV infection as a host genetic factor.