Circulating concentration of interleukin-37 in Helicobacter pylori-infected patients with peptic ulcer: Its association with IL-37 related gene polymorphisms and bacterial virulence factor CagA

The immunopathologic responses play a major role in the development of H. pylori (HP)-related gastrointestinal diseases. IL-37 is an anti-inflammatory cytokine with potent suppressive effects on innate and adaptive immune responses. Here, we investigated the IL-37 levels and two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) including rs3811047 and rs2723176 in IL-37 gene in HP-infected peptic ulcer (PU) patients to identify any relationship. Three groups, including 100 HP-infected PU patients, 100 HP-infected asymptomatic (AS) subjects and 100 non-infected healthy control (NHC) subjects were enrolled to study. Serum IL-37 levels and the genotyping at rs3811047 and rs2723176 were determined using ELISA and SSP-PCR methods, respectively. Significantly higher IL-37 levels were observed in PU patients compared with AS and NHC groups (P 0.0001). In both PU and AS groups, the CagA