PREVALENCE OF MUTANT CCR5 ALLELE IN SLOVENIAN HIV-1-INFECTED AND NONINFECTED INDIVIDUALS

A 32 bp deletion in the CCR5 gene designated CCR5 Delta 32 has been id entified recently as the cellular basis for resistance to human immuno deficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in some individuals which remained non -infected despite a repeated exposure to this virus. The prevalence of this deletion was examined by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on 51 H IV-1-infected and 385 non-infected individuals from all parts of Slove nia. 84.4% of the the HIV-1-infected and 83.2% of the non-infected ind ividuals were homozygous for wild type CCR5, and 19.6% and 16.3%, resp ectively, were heterozygous. No homozygous mutant genotype was observe d among the HIV-1-infected patients. Of the non-infected individuals, 2 women (0.5%) were found to harbour the CCR5 Delta 32/CCR5 Delta 32 g enotype only, which is, to the best of our knowledge, the lowest preva lence of this particular genotype found among Caucasians to date.