Association of DC-SIGNR Expression in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells with DC-SIGNR Genotypes in HIV-1 Infection.

Dendritic cell-specific intracellular adhesion molecule 3 grabbing nonintegrin related molecule (DC-SIGNR) is a C-type lectin, calcium-dependent carbohydrate-binding protein, which can act as a cell-adhesion and pathogen recognition receptor. DC-SIGNR is known to be highly expressed on liver sinusoidal cells and in the lymph nodes. However, its expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in HIV-1 infection has not been addressed. Therefore, this study determined the expression of DC-SIGNR in PBMCs of HIV-1-infected patients and healthy seronegative individuals by real-time polymerase chain reaction and assessed its correlation with CD4+ T cell counts and DC-SIGNR genotypes. A significantly higher expression of DC-SIGNR was observed in the PBMCs of HIV-1-infected patients compared with healthy seronegative individuals. Further, there was a negative correlation between DC-SIGNR expression and CD4+ T cell counts and positive with viral load, with higher DC-SIGNR expression in the PBMCs of HIV-1-infected patients with a CD4+ T cell count <200 cells/μL than those with >200 cells/μL. This is the first study to report the expression of DC-SIGNR in PBMCs of HIV-1-infected patients. A salient finding of this study is that the DC-SIGNR expression was higher in HIV-1-infected patients, and its positive correlation with viral load and negative with CD4+ T cells counts suggesting a potential role of DC-SIGNR in HIV-1 infection.