Scarring trachoma is associated with polymorphism in the tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) gene promoter and with elevated TNF-alpha levels in tear fluid
| Autor: | David J. Conway, Martin J. Holland, David Mabey, Robin L. Bailey, E. Mbena, R M Jennings, O. S. M. Mahdi, Alison E. Campbell |
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| Rok vydání: | 1997 |
| Předmět: |
Adult
Male Adolescent medicine.medical_treatment Immunology Human leukocyte antigen Biology medicine.disease_cause Microbiology Polymerase Chain Reaction Pathogenesis Cicatrix medicine Humans Allele Child Promoter Regions Genetic Allele frequency Aged Trachoma Polymorphism Genetic Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha Case-control study Chlamydia Infections Middle Aged Infectious Diseases Cytokine Case-Control Studies Tears Parasitology Tumor necrosis factor alpha Female Chlamydia trachomatis Research Article |
| Zdroj: | Europe PubMed Central |
| ISSN: | 0019-9567 |
| Popis: | Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) may play a central role in the disease pathogenesis which occurs as a consequence of chlamydial infection. To investigate the importance of TNF-alpha gene promoter polymorphisms and TNF-alpha levels in tear fluid in scarring trachoma, a large matched-pair case-control study was performed in The Gambia. The -308A allele was present in a higher proportion of patients (28.4%) than controls (18.4%), with an increasing association for homozygotes (chi2 for trend, P = 0.032; allele frequency, 0.163 in patients and 0.099 in controls; chi2, P = 0.025). For the -238A allele, the association was similar but not significant. The disease association was highly significant when the number of either -308A or -238A sites in an individual was considered (P = 0.003). TNF-alpha promoter alleles are tightly linked to some HLA class I and II alleles, but multivariate analysis confirmed that the disease associations were independent of HLA, although a class I allele, A*6802, is also associated with disease. TNF-alpha was more frequently detected in tear samples from patients (27.6%) than from controls (15.9%), increasingly so for higher levels of detectable TNF-alpha (P = 0.015). Among patients, detectable TNF-alpha in tears was highly associated with the presence of ocular chlamydial infection (P < 0.001). The results indicate that TNF-alpha plays a major role in the tissue damage and scarring which occurs as a consequence of Chlamydia trachomatis infection. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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