Association Between Alleles of Cytokine Genes with Rheumatoid Arthritis in Russian Population

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a multi-factor disease with a key role of genetic component in its genesis. Development of osteoporosis and articular destruction is attributed with overexpression of pro-infl ammatory cytokines and reduced production of anti-infl ammatory ones. In this work probable associations of IFN-γ, IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IL-18 and TNFα alleles with rheumatoid arthritis were studied among Russian ethnic group. Methods: A total of 69 Russian ethnical group patients with RA (cases) and 133 healthy control individuals (controls) were genotyped for variants in 8 cytokines genes (IFN-γ, IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-4,IL-6, IL-10, IL-18 and TNFα). Individual genotype and haplotype frequencies were compared between cases and controls. Odd ratios were calculated with asymptotic 95% confi dence intervals and P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically signifi cant. Results: The distribution of studied alleles of cytokine genes in Russian population is similar to other European populations. Genotype, allele and haplotype frequencies were equally distributed between RA cases and controls for IFN-γ (rs2430561), IL-1α (rs1800587), (rs17561), IL-1β (rs1143627), (rs16944), (rs1143634), IL-10 (rs1800871), IL- 18 (rs1946518) and TNFα (rs361525). Meanwhile, signifi cant associations (р