Projects

MHC and Infection

Chair : Narinder Mehra
Secretary: Gurvinder Kaur

An initiative

Following the successful completion of Mycobacterial Disease Study of the 13IHWC, it is apt to extend the study the role of MHC in infectious diseases. Accordingly, it has been planned to include ‘MHC and Infection’ as a major component of the 14IHIWS. The study has been designed to include the following infections:
(i) Mycobacterium tuberculosis,
(ii) HIV infection, with and without tuberculosis, and
(iii) Mycobacterium leprae infection.

With the availability of advanced molecular biology tools, bioinformatics and immunoinformatics, the following important issues would be addressed:
(a) identification of specific HLA motifs and supertypes responsible for restricting T cell responses in infectious diseases,
(b) identification of mycobacterial epitopes bound by select MHC motifs or supertypes in different populations,
(c) role of non HLA genes residing within MHC, e.g MICA, TNF and others.
(d) investigation of functional polymorphism in non MHC genes like the KIRs, NK cell stimulatory ligands e.g RAET1 family on 6q24.2-q25.3, Toll receptor genes, cytokines and others, and
(e) dual interaction between HIV and the opportunistic TB infections.

April, 2005, Update

As an extension of the 13 th IHWC we planned this component to study the role of non-MHC genes in infectious diseases mainly tuberculosis and leprosy. The objectives of the study have undergone some modifications with focus on three non-MHC genes namely

Toll like receptor polymorphism (TLR). Presently, there are 10 TLR genes known, of which TLR2, 4 and 9 have functional polymorphism. These are expressed on various cell types with their genes located on chromosome C4, C9 and C3
PARK2 and PACRG associations with mycobacterial infections. These genes are expressed on the long arm of chromosome 6. You may like to refer to a recent publication in Nature volume 427, 66-40, and 2004.
IL12B genotypes in tuberculosis and leprosy. An interesting data has emerged in a preliminary study conducted by others and us. You may like to refer to a recent publication in J Infect Dis., 190,580-7,2004.

The following laboratories have expressed interest for the study on the listed populations.

Population	Investigators	Samples	TLR	PARK2& PACRG	IL12B	HLA
North Indians ( Delhi area including Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh)	NK Mehra New Delhi narin98@ hotmail.com	274 leprosy 116 TB	Y Y	Y N	Y Y	Y Y
North Indians (Lucknow area 500 km east of Delhi, comparable to North indians as above)	S. Aggarwal Lucknow Sur_ksha_agarwal@yahoo.co.in	awaited	Y	N	Y	Y
South India (Chennai area )	P Selvaraj Chennai psraj21@hotmail.com	awaited	Y	N	Y	Y
Brazillian poplulation	Jeane Visentainer Brazil Jelvisentainer@uem.br	awaited	Y	N	Y	Y
Caucasoid Russian (Saint Petersburg region)	Ludmila Bubnovanarin Russia Aberkos@yandex.ru or tglazanova@itcwin.com	awaited	Y	Y	Y	Y

We propose to recruit more patients with tuberculosis and leprosy across the spectrum as well as an equal number of population based healthy controls for comparison. The intending further collaborators are welcome to enroll. There are two ways in which the interested laboratories can participate. i) By contributing data themselves (HLA & all of the above three non-MHC genes). or ii) By sending the DNA samples to us centrally. Interested members are requested to send the consent form to the study chair latest by 15th May 2005.

The TLR polymorphism analysis will be done in New Delhi, the PACRG & PARK2 study by Prof. Erwin Schurr, ( Montreal, Canada) and IL12B polymorphism by Prof. Grant Morahan, ( Perth, Australia)

Submission Deadlines:

Samples collection : 15May, 2005

MHC Data submission : Sep 1,2005

Non MHC Data submission : Sep30, 2005

Workshop in Melbourne : 29Nov-3Dec, 2005

For comments and suggestions, please contact:

NARINDER MEHRA
CHAIR, MHC AND INFECTION STUDY OF 14IHIWS

Prof and Head
Department of Transplant Immunology & Immunogenetics
All India Institute of Medical Sciences
Ansari Nagar, New Delhi-110029
INDIA
Tel (91 11) 26588588, 26594638
Fax (91 11) 26588663
Email narin98@hotmail.com

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