The clinical impact of chemokine receptor CCR5 Δ32 mutation in SARS-CoV-2 infected patients

Abstract

Since the first outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), many infected people have developed a severe infection, which is usually a sequel of cytokine overproduction. The chemokine receptor, such as chemokine receptor 5, also denoted as (CCR5) has a role in the pathogenicity of COVID-19 disease. The ongoing research paper tried to assess the impact role of CCR5Δ32 mutation in a group of Iraq SARS-CoV-2 infected patients. A total of 180 samples were enrolled in this study; 120 were patients infected with COVID-19 and verified by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in nasopharyngeal swabs. Those patients were categorized into two groups based on the severity of the disease: severe COVID-19, which included 60 patients and mild/moderate COVID-19 with 60 patients. Furthermore, 60 subjects confirmed to be COVID-19-negative were enrolled in this study as a control group. The nucleic DNA was obtained from whole blood, and the CCR5Δ32 mutation was genotyped and detected by polymerase chain reaction using specific primer sequences. Results of the current study mentioned that out of the 180 samples in this study, 100 (100%) were wild type for the CCR5 gene (CCR5-wt), while none (0%) were mutant type for the CCR5-Δ32. This research has demonstrated that none of the study patients have the mutant CCR5 gene type (CCR5-32), assuming a lack of the role of CCR5Δ32 in the prognosis of COVID-19 infection. Keywords: Chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5), CCR5Δ32 mutation, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2.