title: Tumor necrosis factor-alpha gene polymorphism in chronic bronchitis.
abstract: Airway inflammation is an important pathologic feature in chronic bronchitis, and we hypothesized that individuals with greater inflammatory responses may be more likely to acquire the disease. A polymorphism at -308 position of the tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) gene has been described, with the rarer allele, TNF2, demonstrated to have higher inducibility in vitro. We investigated the distribution of this polymorphism in a case-control study. The genotype was determined in 42 male patients with chronic bronchitis, 42 sex-, age-, and smoking index-matched control subjects, and 99 random-sampled schoolchildren. We report here that the TNF2 allele is overrepresented in the patient group. The allele frequency of TNF2 is 5.1% in the schoolchildren, 2.4% in the control group, and 19% in the bronchitis group (p < 0.01). Carriage of the TNF2 allele confers a higher risk to the development of chronic bronchitis (odds ratio = 11.1, 95% CI = 2.89-42.57). The results demonstrate the important pathologic role of TNF-alpha in chronic bronchitis and suggest that greater inflammatory response may predispose an individual to this disease.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine, School of Medicine, National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: S L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: C H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: S C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Chang
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000483:Alleles; D001991:Bronchitis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D005541:Forced Expiratory Volume; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D012907:Smoking; D013147:Spirometry; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000235:genetics*; D014797:Vital Capacity
chemical_list: D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha