APOBEC3G is a potent inhibitor of HIV-1 replication, and act by deaminating cytidines in uracil on the negative strand of the viral cDNA. In this case-control study, APOBEC3G expression in subjects’ naïve to HAART infected by HIV-1 and the effect of APOBEC3G polymorphism on its expression were evaluated. The results show that the HIV-1 infected carriers of the G minor alleles of the variant rs8177832 had a higher expression of APOBEC3G mRNA than the controls carriers of the G minor allele. APOBEC3G polymorphisms could play an important role in the modulation of the HIV-1 dissemination

Abstract

Studies on host factors, particularly the APOBEC3G gene, have previously found an association with AIDS progression in some populations and against some HIV-1 strains but not others. Our study had two main objectives: firstly, to screen a population from Burkina Faso for three variants of APOBEC3G previously described, and secondly to analyze the effect of these three variants and their haplotypes on HIV-1 infection with Circulating Recombinant Forms (CRFs) present in Burkina Faso. This case control study involved 708 seropositive and seronegative individuals. Genotyping was done by the TaqMan allelic discrimination method. Minor allele frequencies of rs6001417 (p<0.05), rs8177832 (P<0.05), and rs35228531 (P<0.001) were higher in seronegative subjects. The rs6001417 and rs8177832 SNPs were associated with HIV-1 infection in an additive model (P<0.01). Furthermore, the SNP rs35228531 was also associated with HIV-1 infection in a dominant model (P<0.001). Odds ratio analysis of genotypes and alleles of the different APOBEC3G variants showed that there is a strong association between the minor genetic variants, genotype of the three SNPs, and HIV-1 status. Haplotype analysis demonstrated that rs6001417, rs8177832, and rs35228531 are in linkage disequilibrium. The haplotype GGT from the rs6001417, rs8177832 and rs35228531 respectively has a protective effect OR = 0.54 [0.43–0.68] with P<0.001. There was also associations between the haplotypes GGC OR = 1.6 [1.1;-2.3] P<0.05, and CGC OR = 5.21 [2.4–11.3] P<0.001, which increase the risk of infection by HIV-1 from almost two (2) to five (5) fold. This study demonstrates an association of rs6001417, rs8177832, and rs35228531 of APOBEC3G with HIV-1 infection in a population from Burkina Faso.