Study of Hla-C And Kir Gene Variants In HCV Infected Patients And Their Plausible Effect on Treatment Response

Abstract

Hepatitis C Virus, a major etiologic cause of acute and chronic hepatitis, evades the host immune system and infects millions of people, leads to severe morbidity and mortality. It has been investigated that Human Leukocyte Antigen-C and Killer Immunoglobulin-like Receptor association play a vital role in either progression or clearance of HCV. These receptors specific for Major histocompatibility class I molecules located on their target cells regulate the natural killer cell production. Treatment outcome differs from individual to individual as the breadth of the genetic heterogeneity of KIR and HLA is great, due to viral as well as host factors. They are the major factors affecting the rate of treatment and found to be a key predictor for treatment outcome. Therefore, the current study was aimed to investigate the prognostic host factors to predict the treatment response to PEG IFN/RBV therapy in association with KIR/HLA-C gene variants in HCV infected patients. 102 HCV patients were included in the study and their KIR and HLA was genotyped. 30 healthy volunteers negative for HCV were kept as controls. In this study, we found homozygous C2C2 is associated with failure of treatment (P-value 0.0213). KIR2DL1+C2 carriers also indicated disease progression. Our results suggest that the presence of certain activating KIR receptors could protect the patient by enhancing the immune response against virus. Also it was found that there was a significant correlation between the type of KIR and HLA of individual and HCV infection (P<0.05). Finally, it can be concluded that particular HLA-C variant in combination with specific KIRs might effect and thus alters the treatment outcome to some extent.