Gene polymorphisms in CCR5, CCR2, SDF1 and RANTES among Chinese Han population with HIV-1 infection

Chemokines and chemokine receptors are crucial for immune response in HIV-1 infection. Although many studies have been done to investigate the relationship between chemokines and chemokine receptor gene polymorphisms and host's susceptibility to HIV-1 infection, the conclusions are under debate. In the present study, a cohort of 287 HIV-1 seropositive patients, 388 ethnically age-matched healthy controls and 49 intravenous drug users (IDUs) HIV-1 exposed seronegative individuals (HESN) from Chinese Han population were enrolled in order to determine the influence of host genetic factors on HIV-1 infection. Seven polymorphisms on four known chemokines/chemokine receptor genes (CCR5Δ32, CCR5 m303, CCR5 59029A/G, CCR2 64I, RANTES −403A/G, RANTES −28C/G and SDF1 3′-A) were screened. CCR5Δ32 and CCR5 m303 were absent or infrequent in Chinese Han population, which may not be hosts' genetic protective factors for HIV-1 infection. Our results showed the CCR5 59029A/G, CCR2 64I and SDF1 3′-A were not associated with host's resistance to HIV-1 infection. The frequency of RANTES −403A allele was significantly lower in HIV-1 patients than in healthy blood donors (p = 0.0005) and HESN group (p = 0.035), which implied the association between A allele and reduced HIV-1 infection risk. Different genetic models were assessed to investigate this association (AA vs. GG + AG, OR = 0.38 95% CI, 0.22-0.65 p = 0.0004; A vs. G, OR = 0.66 95% CI, 0.52-0.84 p = 0.0006), which supported this association, either. The genotype and allele distribution of RANTES −28 between HIV-1 patients and healthy controls (genotype profile: p = 0.072; allele profile: p = 0.027) or HIV-1 seronegative group (genotype profile: p = 0.036; allele profile: p = 0.383) were both at the marginal level of significance, which were not observed after Bonferroni correction. All these results suggest the RANTES −403A may be associated with reduced susceptibility to HIV-1 infection, while the RANTES −28 locus not. By lack of the patients' clinical information, whether these polymorphisms affect AIDS disease progression and their role in different HIV-1 infection routes could not performed in present study and needs to be assessed in ongoing studies.