The identification of copy number variation of CD209 (DCSIGN) gene among dengue patients from peninsular Malaysia

Dengue is one of the most important arthropod-borne viral infection in human. Numerous factors have been attributed to the severity of dengue infection, including host genome variation. Genomic structural variations such as copy number variation (CNVs), constitutes a substantial fraction of the human genetic variability, but its role in susceptibility to infectious diseases is not well understood. Previous studies have confirmed the role of host candidate gene CD209 variation in the susceptibility to dengue. Although the CNV of this gene has been reported in the Database of Genomic Variants (DGV), its characterization has yet to be studied. Therefore we aimed to characterize the CNV of the candidate gene CD209 among dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever patients from Malaysia. We found that 19% of the dengue patients had copy number loss (copy number < 2), while 36% had copy number gain (copy number > 2). Analysis of genetic association between the gene copy number and vascular leakage in dengue revealed no statistical significance (P = 0.9043), suggesting minimal contribution of CD209 CNV in the aetiology of dengue hemorrhagic fever. Further investigation with higher number of samples, however, is needed to confirm this finding.