Title:Chemokines SNPs in HIV-1+ Patients and Healthy Controls from Northeast Brazil: Association with Protection against HIV-1 Infection
Volume: 14
Issue: 4
Author(s): Ronaldo Celerino da Silva, Antonio Victor Campos Coelho, Luiz Cláudio Arraes, Lucas André Cavalcanti Brandão, Rafael Lima Guimarães and Sergio Crovella
Affiliation:
Keywords:
CCL3, CCL4, SNPs, HIV-1, infection.
Abstract: Background: HIV-1 virus is known to infect the host mainly through CD4+ T-lymphocyte
cells, by interactions among the viral envelope proteins, CD4 receptor and HIV-1 coreceptors, such as
chemokines receptors. Variations in the genes encoding HIV-1 coreceptors and their natural ligands
have been shown to modify HIV-1 infection susceptibility and disease progression.
Methods and Results: We analysed the distribution of SNPs in chemokines (CCL3, CCL4, CCL5,
CXCL12) and chemokine receptor (CXCR6) genes, in 268 HIV-1 infected patients (HIV-1+) and 221 healthy controls
from Northeast Brazil, and their possible connection with susceptibility to HIV-1 infection. The genotyping were
performed through allele specific fluorogenic probes using real time PCR. We observed that the T alleles and AT
genotype of rs1719153 CCL4 SNP were more frequent in healthy controls (19.8% and 35.0%, respectively) than in HIV-1+
patients (T allele: 14.1%; OR=0.67; 95%CI=0.47-0.95; p-value=0.020; and AT genotype: 24.4%; OR=0.61; 95%CI=0.40-
0.93; p-value=0.021) after correcting for age and sex. The rs1719134 (CCL3) and rs1719153 (CCL4) SNPs presented
linkage disequilibrium (D’=0.83). The AT haplotype frequency was increased in healthy controls (17.3%) in relation to
HIV-1+ patients (11.0%; OR=0.62; 95%CI=0.42-0.93; p-value=0.020).
Conclusion: Since our results revealed an increased frequency of alleles and genotypes of CCL3/CCL4 SNPs and
haplotype (CCL3-CCL4) among healthy controls, we suggest that these variations might have a potential protective role
against HIV-1 infection.
