Interleukin-18 promoter polymorphism in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
This article is from A pawlik and colleagues from the Herczynska group at Szczecin in Poland (they can be found in the Pomeranian medical school department of pharmo-kinetics).
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disease in which interleukin (IL)-18 plays an important role. However, there are controversial reports on IL-18 promoter polymorphism as an independent marker of rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility. T
he aim of the present study was to examine the IL-18 promoter polymorphism in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and its association with disease susceptibility, activity and severity. We examined 309 patients with rheumatoid arthritis from a Polish population diagnosed according to the criteria of American College of Rheumatology. An allele-specific polymerase chain reaction was used for analysis of the polymorphisms in positions - 137 and - 607 in promoter region of IL-18 gene.
A significantly decreased number of subjects with AC/AC and AG/AG diplotypes was observed among rheumatoid arthritis patients as compared with healthy controls (OR - 0.51, 95%CI 0.28-0.95, P = 0.045) and (OR - 0.12, 95% CI 0.02-0.97, P = 0.042), respectively. Nevertheless, there was no significant association with disease activity, joint erosions, extra-articular manifestations, rheumatoid factor.
The above results suggest that IL-18-137 and - 607 promoter polymorphisms are not the significant factors influencing rheumatoid arthritis course and severity in a Polish population.
This abstract was sourced from pubmed id number 16671950. It is in the May issue, and the full article can be found from there if you have a subscription it is in the May 2006 edition and starts on page four hundred and fifteen.
