OBJECTIVE:

A number of chemokines and chemokine receptors are produced by intrinsic renal cells as well as by infiltrating cells during renal inflammation. The CCR2 chemokine receptor mediates leukocyte chemoattraction in the initiation and amplification phase of renal inflammation. The polymorphism, CCR2-V64I, changes valine 64 of CCR2 to isoleucine. We aimed to determine the frequency of CCR2-V64I polymorphism in patients with chronic renal failure requiring long-term hemodialysis.

METHODS AND PATIENTS:

The PCR-based restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique was used to assess the gene frequencies of CCR2-641 in CRF patients (n=210) and healthy controls (n=139) in the current study.

RESULTS:

The frequencies of the CCR2 genotype were 0.68 for V/V, 0.28 for V/I, and 0.4 for I/I in the CRF patients and 0.81 for V/V, 018 for V/I and 0.1 for I/I in healthy controls. The distribution of the CCR2-V64I mutant genotype was significantly different between subjects with CRF and healthy control subjects (X2=7.197 and p=0.027).

CONCLUSION:

We found that the CCR2-V64I polymorphism was significantly high in CRF patients. In addition to the contribution to disease pathogenesis, it was recently found that chemokines have therapeutic importance in chronic renal failure. The frequency of CCR2-V64I and other chemokine and chemokine receptor polymorphisms in renal pathologies must be further investigated in larger study populations and in different renal diseases.