A tyrosine-rich region in the N terminus of CCR5 is important for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 entry and mediates an association between gp120 and CCR5.

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) requires the presence of specific chemokine receptors in addition to CD4 to enter target cells. The chemokine receptor CCR5 is used by the macrophage-tropic strains of HIV-1 that predominate during the asymptomatic stages of infection. Here we identify a small tyrosine-rich region of CCR5 proximal to the N-terminal cysteine that is critical for entry of macrophage-tropic and dual-tropic variants of HIV-1. HIV-1 infection of cells expressing CCR5 mutants with changes in this region was substantially reduced compared with the infection of cells bearing wild-type CCR5. Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIVmac239) entry was also ablated on a subset of these mutants but enhanced on others. These differences in virus entry were correlated with the relative ability of soluble, monomeric HIV-1 and SIVmac239 gp120 glycoproteins to bind the CCR5 mutants. These results identify a region of CCR5 that is necessary for the physical association of the gp120 envelope glycoprotein with CCR5 and for HIV-1 infection.