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The chemokine receptor CCR5 is an important coreceptor for HIV. Persons homozygous for a nonfunctional variant of the CCR5 gene (CCR5Δ32) are resistant to HIV-1 infection and disease progression. Little is known about the role of CCR5 in the pathogenesis of other viral infections. Now, two separate reports suggest that CCR5 deficiency could lead to more-severe infection with flaviviruses.
Kindberg and colleagues performed CCR5Δ32 genotyping among Lithuanian patients with symptomatic tickborne encephalitis (TBE) virus infections (n=129) or aseptic meningitis (AME; n=76) and among matched controls with no infection (n=134). Three CCR5Δ32 homozygotes were found — all of them patients with TBE (P=0.026, compared with AME patients and healthy con…