Abstract

Possible Association Between the Chemokine Receptor Gene CCR5-Delta32 Mutation and Hepatitis C Virus Pathogenesis

*Kouka Saad Eldin Abdel-Wahab, **Mohamed Foda, *Magda Abdel-Moneim Gamil, *Azza-Hassan El-salakawy, ***Gamal El-Attar,

**Shinji Harada, **Yosuke Maeda

*Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine for Girls,
Al-Azhar University; Cairo, Egypt; **Department of Medical Virology School of Medicine, Kumamoto University, Japan; ***Department of Internal Medicine, Theodore Bilharz Institute, Imbaba, Egypt

Abstract

Background: CCR5-Delta32, a 32-base pair deletion of the CC chemokine receptor (CCR)5 gene, is associated with slowed human immunodeficiency virus disease progression in heterozygotes and protection against infection in homozygotes between carriers and non-carriers of each genetic variant. The present study investigated the frequency and clinical consequence of the CCR%-Delta32 mutation in Egyptian HCV infected patients. Genomic DNA samples from 150 patients with chronic HCV infection were screened by PCR for the presence of the CCR5-Delta32 polymorphism. One hundred blood donors were used as control population.

Results: The frequency of CCR5-Delta32 heterozygosity was 0.67% in chronic hepatitis C virus and 0% in controls. The CCR5-Delta32 allele was not associated with any of the clinical parameters of hepatitis C virus infection.

Conclusion: In this study, the frequency of CCR5-Delta32 homozygosity in patients with hepatitis C was similar to controls.

Volume 17 Index