Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Functional analysis of novel SLC11A1 (NRAMP1) promoter variants in susceptibility to HIV-1
  1. H Donninger1,
  2. T J Cashmore2,3,
  3. T Scriba2,
  4. D C Petersen2,
  5. E Janse van Rensburg2,
  6. V M Hayes2,4
  1. 1Departments of Internal Medicine, University of Stellenbosch, Tygerberg, South Africa
  2. 2Departments of Medical Virology, University of Stellenbosch, Tygerberg, South Africa
  3. 3Departments of Human Genetics, University of Stellenbosch, Tygerberg, South Africa
  4. 4Cancer Research Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, Australia
  1. Correspondence to:
 Dr V M Hayes
 Cancer Research Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, 384 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia; v.hayesgarvan.org.au

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

The divalent cation transporter is the natural resistance associated macrophage protein 1 (formerly NRAMP1 and now named SLC11A1) for solute carrier 11A1 (OMIM accession number 600266). The gene that codes for this transporter has been studied intensively for its role in conferring susceptibility to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, leprosy, meningococcal meningitis, visceral leishmaniasis, and HIV infection, as well as to autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, sarcoidosis, inflammatory bowel disease,1 and, more recently, Kawasaki disease.2 Most studies have investigated a functional GT repeat sequence in the promoter region of this gene3 and have identified two commonly occurring repeat alleles and four rare repeat alleles.4,5 The common alleles are T(GT)5AC(GT)5AC(GT)10 (allele 2) and T(GT)5AC(GT)5AC(GT)9 (allele 3; GenBank accession number AF229163, 5768 to 5808). Allele 2, which decreases gene expression, has been associated with susceptibility to infectious diseases; the more common allele 3 enhances gene expression to protect against infectious diseases while enhancing susceptibility to autoimmune diseases. Although HIV is classified as an infectious disease, it affects the autoimmune system, which may explain why allele 3 is associated with susceptibility to HIV-1.6,7 This study aimed to screen the promoter region of SLC11A1 for novel sequence variations in people from sub-Saharan Africa infected with HIV-1 compared with uninfected people and to determine the effect of novel variants on normal promoter function.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Participants

We studied 84 HIV-1 seropositive people (60 African and 24 of mixed African–European descent) and 133 HIV-1 seronegative people (64 African, 62 of mixed African–European descent, and seven Asian) who lived in the Western Cape of South Africa and who attended one of the HIV-1 clinics in Tygerberg or Langa or the blood transfusion services of the Western Cape. In this study, we …

View Full Text

Footnotes

  • Conflicts of interest: none declared.

  • Funding: The study was funded by the Poliomyelitis Research Foundation, South Africa.