OBJECTIVETo investigate the single nucleotide polymorphism(SNP) loci of HIV-1 coreceptor CCR5 gene in Chinese Han people.

METHODSThe coding region of CCR5 was amplified using 2 pairs of primers and the PCR products of all 42 healthy subjects were sequenced by 4 different primers. The results of sequencing were analyzed by DNAstar in search of SNP loci.

RESULTSSix SNP loci were discovered in the coding region of CCR5, among them four SNPs, i.e. 184A-->G, 503G-->T, 688G-->A and 999G-->T, cause amino acids changes and two SNPs are nonsense mutations. One cytosine deletion at the 894nt results in frame shift mutation and prematured termination. 184A-->G, 503G-->T and 999G-->T were found in Chinese Han people for the first time. The allelic frequencies of mutant 184G, 503T and 999T alleles were 1.1%, 21.1% and 10.0% in healthy Hans, respectively. The population distribution of G503T markedly deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.

CONCLUSIONThe SNP loci in the coding region of CCR5 in Chinese Han people has its own characteristics, which is not consistent with those of Japanese and obviously different from those of Caucasian and African.