CC chemokine receptor polymorphism CCR5Δ32 in Portuguese Behçet's disease patients.

Objectives: To investigate whether CCR5 deletion is associated with susceptibility to Behçet's disease (BD) in a Portuguese population.

Methods: A total of 122 BD patients and 227 ethnically-matched controls were studied. Genotyping of the CCR5Δ32 polymorphisms was performed using polymerase chain reaction product sizing.

Results: No significant differences were observed in the allelic frequencies of CCR532 between patients and controls (OR=0.820; p=0.512). Stratification for gender and for the presence of HLA-B*51 did not reveal any significant differences.

Conclusions: These results indicate that CCR5Δ32 is unlikely to contribute to susceptibility to BD in Portuguese patients. This may be explained by the known functional redundancy of this signalling system.