Lack of association between TNFalpha gene polymorphism at position -308 and risk of acute rheumatic fever in Turkish patients.
OBJECTIVE
Acute rheumatic fever (ARF) is a multisystem inflammatory disease process that follows nasopharyngeal infection caused by group A streptococcus (GAS) (Streptococcus pyogenes). Recent studies have demonstrated that allelic variations at the tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha) locus are involved in the nature of rheumatic diseases such as juvenile idiopathic arthritis and rheumatic heart disease. Thus, TNFalpha polymorphisms at -308 in ARF patients might be useful in contributing to identification of the primary factors associated with pathogenesis of ARF.


METHODS
We performed a case-control association study between the common G/A promoter polymorphism at position -308 in the TNFalpha gene and ARF in Turkish patients, investigating whether this locus acts as a risk factor or has a modifying effect.


CONCLUSIONS
Previous studies have reported that TNFalpha plays a major role in the pathogenesis of a number of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Moreover, significantly elevated TNFalpha levels were reported in patients with ARF. However, in our sample of patients with ARF (n = 66), no such association was found. No interactive effect was found between the TNFalpha polymorphism at position -308 and no association was detected with disease progression. These findings suggest that the role of TNFalpha in ARF may be in linkage disequilibrium with some other severity genes not yet genetically determined.
Berdeli
A
A
Department of Paediatrics, Ege University School of Medicine, Bornova, Izmir, Turkey. afig@med.ege.edu.tr
Tabel
Y
Y
Celik
H A
HA
Ozyürek
R
R
Dogrusoz
B
B
Aydin
H H
HH
D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015810:Linkage Disequilibrium; D008297:Male; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D012213:Rheumatic Fever / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000235:genetics*; D014421:Turkey
D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha