Acta Virologica Vol.52, No.4, p.261-264, 2008

The chemokine (C-C motif) receptor 5 (CCR5) represents a major co-receptor for macrophage-tropic Human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) strains. A 32 bp deletion mutant allele in the CCR5 gene (CCR5-D32) provides to homozygotes a strong resistance to HIV-1 infection. In this study, the prevalence of CCR5-D32 in 200 HIV-1-negative and 162 HIV-1-positive individuals was determined. The presence of CCR5-D32 in blood samples was detected by PCR. CCR5-D32 was found to be homozygous in 1% and heterozygous in 17% of the HIV-1-negative individuals. In HIV-1-positive patients, no homozygous CCR5-D32 was found, while heterozygous CCR5-D32 occurred in 15.4% patients. Thus, no significant difference between HIV-1-negative and HIV-1-positive individuals was found, what is in accord with the findings obtained in other EU countries. The results of this study do not indicate that a relatively low incidence of HIV-1 infection in Slovakia could be caused by the CCR5-D32 mutation.