“…Since the discovery of these coreceptors, it has become well established that alterations in their gene expression and function can impact HIV-1 disease progression. For example, inheritance of the chemokine receptor (CR) polymorphisms CCR5 open reading frame (ORF) ⌬32, CCR5 promoter Ϫ2459 A-to-G, and CCR2 ORF 190 G-to-A (CCR2-64I) are associated with delayed development of the AIDS in HIV-1-infected patients (4,5,9,14,16,17,20,21,29,33,35,36,38,39,45,53,54). Moreover, individuals homozygous for the CCR5-⌬32 allele, comprising about 1% of the Caucasian population, have strongly reduced susceptibility to R5-dependent HIV-1 infection (7,26,49).…”