Although meta-analysis is a powerful statistical method, inherent limitations of this study should be addressed. First, we only included the studies written in English and Chinese, and the related reports in other languages were not included, which might bias our conclusion in this study. Second, publication bias could not be excluded though the test showed negative results. The studies reporting significant associations between certain genotypes and reduced susceptibility to HIV infection would be more readily published while the studies with nonsignificant associations would be more difficult to publish. Third, most of the studies were conducted using Asian population groups. In the stratified analysis by ethnicity, there was only one study performed with Africans and two studies with European Americans, each of which had a sample size too small to achieve enough statistical power to obtain significant observations. In fact, many association studies showed different results for different populations. Thus, further studies are warranted in other ethnic populations to evaluate the possible ethnic differences of the VNTR polymorphism and HIV-1 susceptibility. Fourth, gene-gene and gene-environment interactions may influence host susceptibility to HIV-1 infection. In fact, many genes have been proven to influence HIV-1 infection risk, but we did not have enough data to eliminate these interfering factors. Fifth, as most studies did not mentioned about potential population stratification of patients and controls samples, we cannot rule out a role of population structure in the observed association. Finally, further stratified analyses of patients and HESN individuals by infection exposure routes (sexual contact, intravenous drug use, etc.) could not be performed because the data detailing the infection route for the HIV-1 patients were lacking. Because DC-SIGNR is expressed at relatively lower levels in tissues in vivo [35] , the association between the VNTR polymorphism and HIV-1 infection risk by different infection routes might be different.