Association between chemotactic chemokine ligand 5 -403G/A polymorphism and risk of human immunodeficiency virus-1 infection: a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND The association between chemotactic chemokine ligand 5 (CCL5) -403G/A gene polymorphism and human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) infection has been illustrated among several case-control studies, but the conclusions are still inconsistent. Here we performed a meta-analysis to estimate the association. METHODS The published studies based upon the association between CCL5 -403G/A polymorphism and HIV-1 infection were retrieved from PubMed, Embase, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure database. Quantitative synthesis, including pooled odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), was performed for all genetic models. RESULTS A total of ten studies consisting of 5,127 subjects were included for this meta-analysis. There was no association found between -403G/A polymorphism and HIV-1 infection in the overall analysis under any genetic models. Further stratified by ethnicity, our analysis showed that -403A/A polymorphism significantly decreased the susceptibility to HIV-1 infection in three models: the dominant model (AA+AG vs GG: OR =0.44, 95% CI =0.21-0.94) among Africans, the homozygous model (AA vs GG: OR =0.62, 95% CI =0.242-0.90), and the recessive model (AA vs GG+AG: OR =0.62, 95% CI =0.45-0.93) among Asians. CONCLUSION We found that only Asians and Africans with CCL5 -403A/A polymorphism could be resistant to HIV-1 infection. However, further studies should be performed to evaluate this association on ethnic basis against control groups consisting of individuals who have once been exposed to HIV-1 but are seronegative.