Incidence and dynamics of active cytomegalovirus infection in allogeneic stem cell transplant patients according to single nucleotide polymorphisms in donor and recipient CCR5, MCP-1, IL-10, and TLR9 genes.

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes involved in the activation or regulation of innate and adaptive immune responses may modulate the susceptibility to and the natural history of certain chronic viral infections. The current study aimed to investigate whether donor and recipient SNPs in the chemokine receptor 5 (rs1800023), monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (rs13900), interleukin-10 (rs1878672), and Toll-like receptor 9 (rs352140) genes would exert any influence on the rate of incidence and features of CMV DNAemia in the allogeneic stem cell transplantation setting. This was a retrospective observational multicenter study. The cohort consisted of 102 non-consecutive allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients. SNP genotyping was performed by allele-specific real-time PCR. CMV surveillance was performed by the pp65 antigenemia assay/and or by real-time PCR. Seventy-three patients developed CMV DNAemia within the first 100 days after transplantation (71.5%). Neither donor nor recipient SNPs were associated significantly with the rate of incidence of active CMV infection, nor with the need for pre-emptive antiviral therapy. Both the duration of CMV DNAemia and the plasma CMV DNA peak load during episodes were significantly higher in patients harboring the donor (but not the recipient) chemokine receptor 5 A/A genotype, than in their A/G and G/G counterparts (P = 0.022 and P = 0.045, respectively). The data reported suggest that SNPs in chemokine receptor 5 may influence the dynamics of CMV infection in the Allo-SCT setting.