Screening of HLA-B*5701 in HIV infected/AIDS patients receiving first line antiretroviral therapy using developed real time PCR

Abstract

     There are some recent reports that the screening of HLA-B*5701 has helped predicting the occurrence of hypersensitivity to abacavir in HIV infected/AIDS patients. The researcher, therefore, developed Real time PCR method for screening of HLA-B*5701 in the HIV infected/AIDS patients to prevent hypersensitivity to abacavir by collecting the blood samples collected from 147 HIV infected/AIDS patients and first screened for HLA-B17 (HLA-B57 and HLA-B58) by flow cytometry. The results revealed that 22 samples were positive (15%) and 125 samples were negative (85%) for HLA-B17. Then, all of the positive samples were subjected to screening of HLA-B*5701 by the developed Real time PCR. The results revealed that 2 samples were HLA-B*5701 (1.4%). In addition, 88 blood samples of HIV infected/AIDS patients were collected and subjected to screening of HLA-B*5701 by the developed Real time PCR. The results revealed that all of the samples were negative. From this study, 2 samples out of the collected 235 blood samples were HLA-B*5701 positive (0.85%). It can be concluded that the developed Real time PCR can be used for screening HLA-B*5701 which will be useful for planning to prevent the occurrence of hypersensitivity to abacavir before treatment HIV infected/AIDS patients with abacavir.