Use of the HCP5 single nucleotide polymorphism to predict hypersensitivity reactions to abacavir: correlation with HLA-B*5701.

Objectives: To study the correlation between the HLA-B*5701 allele and the single nucleotide polymorphism in HCP5 (rs2395029).

Patients And Methods: All HIV patients naive for abacavir seen at our institution between September 2007 and December 2008 were prospectively screened for HLA-B*5701. HCP5 rs2395029 genotyping was carried out by allelic discrimination using the TaqMan 5'-nuclease assay. High-resolution HLA class I typing was undertaken using sequence-specific primers.

Results: A total of 245 HIV patients were included in the study. A good correlation between HLA-B*5701 and HCP5 was observed (negative and positive predictive values of 100% and 93%, respectively).

Conclusions: The use of HCP5 rs2395029 testing could be as useful as HLA-B*5701 typing to prevent the abacavir hypersensitivity reaction. Given that HCP5 testing is cheaper, less time-consuming and easier to perform than HLA typing, it may confidently replace the latter in clinical settings.