TIM1 haplotype may control the disease progression to AIDS in a HIV-1-infected female cohort in Thailand

Objective: To investigate association of TIM1 sequence variations with HIV/AIDS progression. Introduction: HIV-1 infected individuals have wide variations in disease progression including AIDS. T cell immunoglobulin and mucin 1 (TIM1) is a cell surface protein involved in the regulation of Th1/Th2 immune response. Materials and methods: We sequenced the highly polymorphic exon 4 of TIM1 from 246 individuals of HIV-1 infected Thai female cohort to determine their TIM1 haplotypes. Associations of TIM1 haplotypes with baseline clinical data (sero-status, plasma viral load, CD4 cell count, and symptomatic AIDS) and survival status during 3 years of follow-up were evaluated. Results: Seven TIM1 haplotypes, D3-A, D4, D3-C, D1, W-A, W-C, and D3-C*, were found in the cohort. Patients possessing the D3-A haplotype showed trends towards higher CD4+ cell count (P = 0.06) and lower proportion of AIDS-related symptoms (P = 0.022) than the other patients at the baseline. Kaplan–Meier analysis demonstrated that patients carrying the D3-A haplotype had a better survival rates (P = 0.019) than the others. D3-A haplotypes was tightly linked to the lower expression levels of TIM1. Conclusion: TIM1 D3-A haplotype is associated with the delay of disease progression to AIDS in the HIV-1 infected Thai females.