Association between human leukocyte antigen class II alleles and human papillomavirus-mediated cervical cancer in Indian women

Abstract

We investigated the association of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) II (DRB1 and DQB1) alleles with susceptibility to human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cervical precancer and cancer cases in a hospital-based case-control study in a northern Indian population. A total of 202 subjects, including 100 patients comprising 31 cervical precancer (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia [CIN] 2/3) and 69 invasive cervical cancer cases, and 102 healthy controls participated in the study. Both patients and controls were screened for HPV infection using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR-based approach. Low-resolution PCR-sequence specific priming (PCR-SSP) was used to genotype HLA II (DRB1 and DQB1). Our results demonstrate that the DRB115 allele/DRB115-DQB106 haplotype may have a predisposition for HPV infection (p_c < 0.05) or cervical cancer/precancer (p_c < 0.05) development, whereas the DRB104 allele/DRB104-DQB103 haplotype might exhibit susceptibility to cervical precancerous lesions (p_c < 0.05). The DRB113 allele/DRB113-DQB106 haplotype was strongly protective against risk to HPV infection (pc < 0.002) as well as cervical cancer (p_c 0.01). Therefore, we have demonstrated that HLA DR-DQ polymorphisms are involved in genetic susceptibility to cervical cancer or HPV infection in a northern Indian population.