ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The molecular basis of genetic predisposition to pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) in adults remains largely elusive. A chronic granulomatous inflammatory reaction is one of the main characteristics of the immune response to TB; however, a similar reaction is observed in other diseases, such as Crohn's disease. OBJECTIVE: To assess the association of genetic polymorphisms previously associated with Crohn's disease and PTB in a Colombian population of PTB patients and controls. DESIGN: A case-control study was performed among 500 newly diagnosed PTB patients and 320 healthy control subjects. Thirty-one single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) identified in a previous meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of Crohn's disease were used for genotyping using MassARRAY technology. RESULTS: In this study, we identified an association with borderline significance (P = 0.0009433 and P = 0.029 after multiple testing by Bonferroni's correction) of SNP rs10995271 with PTB. SNP rs10995271 is in linkage disequilibrium with SNPs belonging to the zinc finger protein (ZNF365) gene. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that human PTB shares a genetic basis with Crohn's disease, and that SNPs in the ZNF365 gene would have a role in the occurrence of chronic granulomatous inflammatory reaction in TB as well as Crohn's disease.
Subject(s)
Crohn Disease/genetics , Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide , Tuberculosis, Pulmonary/genetics , Adult , Case-Control Studies , Colombia/epidemiology , Crohn Disease/diagnosis , Crohn Disease/epidemiology , DNA-Binding Proteins/genetics , Female , Gene Frequency , Genetic Predisposition to Disease , Humans , Linkage Disequilibrium , Male , Middle Aged , Phenotype , Risk Factors , Transcription Factors/genetics , Tuberculosis, Pulmonary/diagnosis , Tuberculosis, Pulmonary/epidemiology , Young AdultABSTRACT
Immunological studies have supported the idea that innate immunity is critical for the control of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection in humans. Despite the overwhelming evidence showing the critical role of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) in the in vitro recognition of Mtb, the in vivo significance of individual TLRs has been more difficult to demonstrate consistently. We were interested in examining the role of genes of TLRs and molecules involved in their signalling cascades, and a case-control study was designed to test the association of polymorphisms of these innate immune genes with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in a Colombian population. In this study, we did not find an association with TLR2, TLR4, TLR9, MyD88 or MAL/TIRAP polymorphic variants. These findings suggest that those genes are not involved as risk factors for pulmonary TB in our population.