A 32-year-old African-American woman with a history of sickle cell disease presented for surgical evaluation of left total hip arthroplasty due to avascular necrosis of the femoral head. In anticipation of a complex orthopedic procedure, pre-surgical blood work was ordered. The patient's Fenwal blood sample typed as group O, D+.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHLA-B*57 is the class I allele most consistently associated with control of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) replication, which may be linked to the specific HIV peptides that this allele presents to cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), and the resulting efficacy of these cellular immune responses. In two HIV C clade-infected populations in South Africa and Zambia, we sought to elucidate the role of HLA-B*5703 in HIV disease outcome. HLA-B*5703-restricted CTL responses select for escape mutations in three Gag p24 epitopes, in a predictable order.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn a study of 114 epidemiologically linked Zambian transmission pairs, we evaluated the impact of human leukocyte antigen class I (HLA-I)-associated amino acid polymorphisms, presumed to reflect cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) escape in Gag and Nef of the virus transmitted from the chronically infected donor, on the plasma viral load (VL) in matched recipients 6 mo after infection. CTL escape mutations in Gag and Nef were seen in the donors, which were subsequently transmitted to recipients, largely unchanged soon after infection. We observed a significant correlation between the number of Gag escape mutations targeted by specific HLA-B allele-restricted CTLs and reduced VLs in the recipients.
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