['Tuberculosis, which is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, remains one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. The C-type lectin DC-SIGN is known to be the major M. tuberculosis receptor on human dendritic cells. We reasoned that if DC-SIGN interacts with M. tuberculosis, as well as with other pathogens, variation in this gene might have a broad range of influence in the pathogenesis of a number of infectious diseases, including tuberculosis.', 'We tested whether polymorphisms in CD209, the gene encoding DC-SIGN, are associated with susceptibility to tuberculosis through sequencing and genotyping analyses in a South African cohort. After exclusion of significant population stratification in our cohort, we observed an association between two CD209 promoter variants (-871G and -336A) and decreased risk of developing tuberculosis. By looking at the geographical distribution of these variants, we observed that their allelic combination is mainly confined to Eurasian populations.'] Is promoter variation in the DC-SIGN-encoding gene CD209 associated with tuberculosis?