Evaluation of Genetic Markers as Explanations for the Observed Differences in Disease Progression in HIV+ Youth

Numerous studies have demonstrated an association between HLA class I genotypes with differing progression to AIDS in individuals who are followed after being off antiretroviral therapy. These studies do not always associate the same HLA class I alleles with the risks of HIV-1 disease progression; however they consistently demonstrated that HLA-B\*35 and B\*53 portend a bad outcome compared to the better outcome observed in HLA-B\*27 and B\*57 carriers. Despite this information, very little data exists to explain the mechanism of this association. This longitudinal study will look at the HIV-1 specific CD8+ T-cell responses and the dominant HIV-1 genotype among individuals identified as HLA-B\*27, B\*35, B\*53 and B\*57 positive through studies done in collaboration with the REACH project.