Prevalence of CCR5delta32 in Northeastern Iran
Amir Tajbakhsh1,2,3, Mostafa Fazeli1,3, Mehdi Rezaee3,4
1Department of Modern Sciences & Technologies, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.
Background:
A 32-base pair deletion (∆32) in the open reading frame (ORF) of C-C motif chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) seems to be a protective variant against immune system diseases, especially human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). We aimed to assess the frequency of CCR5∆32 in the healthy Iranian population.
Methods:
In this study, 400 normal samples from Khorasan, northeastern Iran, were randomly selected. The frequency of CCR5∆32 carriers was investigated using PCR analysis. Allele prevalence and the fit to the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were analyzed.
Results:
The prevalence of CCR5∆32 in the northeastern population of Iran was 0.016. Four hundred samples were studied, among which one with CCR5∆32/∆32 and 11 with CCR5Wild/∆32 genotype were detected.
Conclusion:
This study was the first investigation for an assessment of the prevalence of CCR5∆32 in northeastern Iran. The low prevalence of CCR5∆32 allele in the Iranian population may result in the increased susceptibility to HIV-1. In addition, this prevalence is the same as that of reported in East Asia, while is lower than that in the Europeans.


