ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN HLA FREQUENCIES AND PATHOGENIC FEATURES OF HUMAN-IMMUNODEFICIENCY-VIRUS TYPE-1 INFECTION IN SEROCONVERTERS FROM THE AMSTERDAM-COHORT-OF-HOMOSEXUAL-MEN

HLA-disease associations may be important for understanding the pathog enesis of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection. There fore, 106 homosexual men from the Amsterdam Cohort Study on AIDS with a known date of HIV-1 seroconversion were serologically typed for HLA. Several significant associations between HLA type and pathogenic feat ures of HIV-1 infection were observed: Subjects with fever and skin ra sh during primary HIV-1 infection showed an increased frequency of HLA -B62 (relative risk [RR], 5.8; P =.005). The frequency of HLA-B35 was increased in subjects with a rapid decline in CD4(+) T lymphocytes (RR , 3.2; P =.021). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed a significant association between HLA-B35 and a decrease in CD4(+) cells to <200/mu L (P =.01). The strongest association was found between HLA-DR1 and A IDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma (RR, 22.5; P <.001), also confirmed in su rvival analysis (P =.001), in AIDS patients with only opportunistic in fections, increased frequencies of HLA-DR3 (P =.011) and -DQ2 (P =.007 ) were observed. Finally, the occurrence of syncytium-inducing HIV-1 v ariants was significantly associated with HLA-DQ2 (P =.01).