CCR2B-64I Chemokine Receptor Allele and Mother-to-Child HIV-1 Transmission or Disease Progression in Children

: The beneficial role of a variant of the chemokine receptor CCR2B (CCR2B-641) in the evolution of HIV-1 infection in adults is still controversial. Furthermore, no studies have been performed in HIV-1-infected children. A multicenter and prospective study of 745 infants born to HIV-1-seropositive mothers was performed. The CCR2B-641 allele was studied in 525 non-African children among whom 523 had been previously genotyped for the CCR5delta32 allele and 220 African children. Of the 745 total, 376 children were infected and 369 were uninfected. In the complete population studied, the children homozygous for the CCR2B-64I allele and the heterozygous children were found distributed equally in the infected (respectively, 1.6% and 21%) and uninfected (respectively, 1.9% and 26.3%) groups (p < .22). Among 376 infected children, the incidence of stage C symptoms (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] classification) or the progression of severe immune deficiency (CD4 <15%, CDC stage 3) was not significantly different in heterozygous infected children or children homozygous for the normal allele (p < .17 and p < .75, respectively). The same lack of protective effect was obtained when a separate analysis was performed in the non-African and African HIV-1-infected children.