Association between genetic variants in the IRGM gene and tuberculosis in a Korean population.

Purpose: To investigate immunity-related guanosine triphosphatase family M (IRGM) genetic variants associated with susceptibility to tuberculosis (TB) in a Korean population.
Methods: We conducted a prospective case-control study including 193 patients with active TB in Severance Hospital and 230 age- and sex-matched unrelated controls registered in Yonsei Cardiovascular Genome Center. Based on associations with other chronic inflammatory conditions, we analyzed the allele and genotype frequencies of rs72553867, rs10065172, and rs12654043 among patients with TB and healthy controls.
Results: The T allele of rs10065172 was significantly associated with protection against developing TB based on allele frequency [P = 0.042; odds ratio (OR) 0.75] and genotype distribution in the codominant model (P = 0.036; OR 0.73).
Conclusions: This is the first study to identify a significant association between the IRGM single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs10065172 and susceptibility to active TB disease in an Asian population. The results suggest that IRGM genetic variants could be associated with susceptibility to active TB disease in the Korean population.