Association of common polymorphisms in known susceptibility genes with rheumatoid arthritis in a Slovak population using osteoarthritis patients as controls.
BACKGROUND
Both genetic and environmental factors contribute to rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a common and complex autoimmune disease. As well as the major susceptibility gene HLA-DRB1, recent genome-wide and candidate-gene studies reported additional evidence for association of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers in the PTPN22, STAT4, OLIG3/TNFAIP3 and TRAF1/C5 loci with RA. This study was initiated to investigate the association between defined genetic markers and RA in a Slovak population. In contrast to recent studies, we included intensively-characterized osteoarthritis (OA) patients as controls.


METHODS
We used material of 520 RA and 303 OA samples in a case-control setting. Six SNPs were genotyped using TaqMan assays. HLA-DRB1 alleles were determined by employing site-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification.


RESULTS
No statistically significant association of TRAF1/C5 SNPs rs3761847 and rs10818488 with RA was detected. However, we were able to replicate the association signals between RA and HLA-DRB1 alleles, STAT4 (rs7574865), PTPN22 (rs2476601) and OLIG3/TNFAIP3 (rs10499194 and rs6920220). The strongest signal was detected for HLA-DRB1*04 with an allelic P = 1.2*10-13 (OR = 2.92, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.18 - 3.91). Additionally, SNPs rs7574865STAT4 (P = 9.2*10-6; OR = 1.71, 95% CI = 1.35 - 2.18) and rs2476601PTPN22 (P = 9.5*10-4; OR = 1.67, 95% CI = 1.23 - 2.26) were associated with susceptibility to RA, whereas after permutation testing OLIG3/TNFAIP3 SNPs rs10499194 and rs6920220 missed our criteria for significance (Pcorr = 0.114 and Pcorr = 0.180, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
In our Slovak population, HLA-DRB1 alleles as well as SNPs in STAT4 and PTPN22 genes showed a strong association with RA.
Stark
Klaus
K
Department of Internal Medicine II, University Hospital Regensburg, Franz-Josef-Strauss-Allee 11, 93042 Regensburg, Germany. klaus.stark@klinik.uni-regensburg.de
Rovenský
Jozef
J
Blazicková
Stanislava
S
Grosse-Wilde
Hans
H
Ferencik
Stanislav
S
Hengstenberg
Christian
C
Straub
Rainer H
RH
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D005819:Genetic Markers / Q000235:genetics; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010003:Osteoarthritis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics*; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic / Q000235:genetics*; D018154:Slovakia / Q000453:epidemiology; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics*; D055815:Young Adult
D005819:Genetic Markers