Abstract
Haptoglobin (Hp) is a plasma α2-glycoprotein that binds free haemoglobin and is thought to have a role in the immune pathway of different pathologies depending on its phenotype. A total of 497 Sudanese patients with viral infections and non-infectious diseases were typed for haptoglobin phenotypes, in this study, using the polyacrylamide non-reducing gel electrophoresis separation method to determine possible associations between haptoglobin phenotypes Hp1-1, Hp2-1 and Hp2-2. Viral infections included human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (n= 129) and hepatitis B (HBV) (n=171). The non-infectious diseases were: liver cirrhosis (LC) (n=68) and chronic renal failure (CRF) (n= 129). Healthy controls (n= 65) were also typed. Each disease sample was compared with the control. Expected percentages of each of the three phenotypes in Sudan estimated using SPSS were between 51.38-51.49% for Hp1-1, 36.71-36.81% for Hp2-1 and 11.76-11.91% for Hp2-2. Hp1-1 was found the most significantly prevalent among patients with LC (P≤0.05). Patients with HIV/AIDS and HBV showed the same distribution of haptoglobin phenotypes as the healthy control (i.e. a majority of Hp2-1); whereas the highest percentage of patients with Hp2-2 were those with CRF (≥23%) although not significantly different from the control. Using Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) as a null model, hp1allele frequency was calculated to be 0.69 and hp2allele frequency was 0.31 in Sudan. The healthy control, LC and CRF sampled populations were significantly deviated from HWE (P=0.05). In this study, we found that Hp1-1 has a significant association with LC. HIV/AIDS and HBV showed the same distribution of phenotypes as control and the highest percentage of patients with Hp2-2 were those with CRF. hp1and hp2allele frequencies were 0.69 and 0.31 in Sudan.