Search

Intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) is the most common diagnosis in patients with back pain, a leading cause of musculoskeletal disability worldwide. Several conditions, such as occupational activities, gender, age, and obesity, have been associated with IDD. However, the development of this disease has strong genetic determinants. In this study, we explore the possible association between rs1800587 (c.-949C>T) of interleukin-1 alpha (IL1A) and rs2228570 (c.2T>V) and rs731236 (c.1056T>C) of vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene polymorphisms and the development of IDD in northwestern Mexican Mestizo population. Gene polymorphisms were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction followed by restriction fragment length polymorphism, in two groups matched by age and gender: patients with symptomatic lumbar IDD (n = 100) and subjects with normal lumbar-spine MRI-scans (n = 100). Distribution of the mutated alleles in patients and controls was 27.0% versus 28.0% (P = 0.455) for T of rs1800587 (IL1A); 53.0% versus 58.0% (P = 0.183) for V of rs2228570 (VDR); and 18.0% versus 21.0% (P = 0.262) for C of rs731236 (VDR). Our results showed no association between the studied polymorphisms and IDD in this population. This is the first report on the contribution of gene polymorphisms on IDD in a Mexican population.

Objectives: We focused our study on examining the genotype and allele frequency of IL-6 (rs1800795), TNF-α (rs1800629) and IL-10 (rs1800872) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) on preeclampsia (PE) diagnosed Mexican pregnant women., Material and Methods: A case-control study was designed including 86 preeclampsia patients and 100 normotensives pregnancies from Women's Hospital of Culiacan, Mexico. Genotyping of IL-6, TNF-α and IL-10 was performed using TaqMan SNP Genotyping., Results: Not significant association was found between development of PE and genotypic (p > 0.05) and allelic (p > 0.05) frequencies of IL-6, TNF-α and IL-10 SNPs. Genotype distributions of IL-6 (p = 0.599), TNF-α (p = 0.721) and IL-10 (p = 0.761) polymorphisms in the two groups were in agreement with Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium., Conclusions: According to the findings, the IL-6, TNF-α and IL-10 SNPs are not exponents of susceptibility to developing PE.

A single birth-dose of Hepatitis B vaccine (HepB) can protect newborns from acquiring Hepatitis B infection through vertical transmission, though several follow-up doses are required to induce long-lived protection. In addition to stimulating antibodies, a birth-dose of HepB might also induce polyfunctional CD4 + T-cells, which may contribute to initial protection. We investigated whether vaccination with HepB in the first week of life induced detectable antigen-specific CD4 + T-cells after only a single dose and following completion of the entire HepB vaccine schedule (3 doses). Using HBsAg- stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 344 infants, we detected increased populations of antigen-specific polyfunctional CD154 + IL-2 + TNFα + CD4 + T-cells following a single birth-dose of HepB in a proportion of infants. Frequencies of polyfunctional T-cells increased following the completion of the HepB schedule but increases in the proportion of responders as compared to following only one dose was marginal. Polyfunctional T-cells correlated positively with serum antibody titres following the birth dose (day30) and completion of the 3-dose primary HepB vaccine series (day 128). These data indicate that a single birth dose of HepB provides immune priming for both antigen-specific B- and T cells., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Strandmark, Darboe, Diray-Arce, Ben-Othman, Vignolo, Rao, Smolen, Leroux-Roels, Idoko, Sanchez-Schmitz, Ozonoff, Levy, Kollmann, Marchant and Kampmann.)