| Research Abstract |
In order to develop a predictive diagnostic method for autoimmune disease, we examined the relations between the disease severity or intractability and the gene polymorphism in autoimmune disease.
We screened for the +874A/T single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the gene encoding interferon γ (IFN-γ), the-330T/G SNP in the interleukin 2 (IL-2) gene, and the-1082A/G SNP in IL-10 gene in patients with Hashimoto's disease (HD) who developed hypothyroidism before 50 years old (sever HD), in untreated, euthyroid patients with HD who were over 50 years of age (mild HD), in patients with Graves' disease (GD) who were treated with anti-thyroid drugs for more than 5 years but could not terminate therapy (intractable GD), in GD patients in remission (GD in remission), and in healthy volunteers.
Frequency of the +874T allele, which is associated with high IFN-γ production, was higher in patients with severe HD than in those with mild HD (odds ratio (OR), 3.5;95% confidence interval (CI), 1.0-12.4; p=0.047), but there was no difference in the frequency between GD patients. The difference in the frequency of +874T was observed in the subset of patients with HD negative for anti-thyroglobulin antibody (TgAb) (OR, 8.4;95% CI, 1.2-57.3; p=0.029) but not in the subset of patients with HD positive for TgAb. Frequency of the-330G allele, which is associated with high IL-2 production, seemed to be higher in patients with severe HD and with GD in remission than in those with mild HD and with intractable GD. On the other hand, frequency of the-1082G allele, which is associated with high IL-10 production, seemed to be lower in HD patients, and to be higher in GD patient.
Our data suggest that SNPs in the cytokine genes are useful to predict the HD severity and GD intractability.
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