Journal of Clinical and Cellular Immunology
Open Access

Abstract

Genetic Factors Contributing to Systemic Lupus Erythematosus in Tunisian Patients

Hajer Fourati, Dorra Bouzid, Olfa Abida, Najla Kharrat, Sameh Marzouk, Samy Haddouk, Constantin Fesel, João Costa, Mourad Ben Ayed, Zouhair Bahloul, Carlos Penha-Gonçalves, Ahmed Rebai and Hatem Masmoudi

Systematic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a multi system autoimmune disease characterized by autoantibodies production, multi-organ damage and complex genetic inheritance. Multiple genetic and environemental factors contribute to the pathogenesis of this disease. Recent genome-wide studies, have added substantially to the number of genes associated with SLE. We performed a case control study using 138 SNPs in 93 Tunisian patients affected with lupus and 162 healthy controls. All SNPs were genotyped in a Sequenom platform. To confirm some associations, associated SNPs were analyzed using logistic regression which allows the test of association with a given SNP by adjusting for the effect of confounding variables. Association was especially reported with rs3733197 (P=0.0026, OR=2.04), rs17266594 (P=0.046, OR=1.56) in BANK1 gene, rs2070197 (P=0.0016, OR=2.31), rs2004640 (P=0.024, OR=1.54), rs10954213 (P=0.035, OR=1.53) in IRF5 gene and rs7574865 (P=0.017, OR=1.77) in STAT4 gene: previously confirmed SLE susceptibility genes. rs1800629 (P=0.00036, OR=2.26), rs4147359 (P=0.026, OR=1.55) and rs11575812 (P=0.037, OR=1.57) of TNF-α, IR2RA and IL2 genes respectively were also associated with SLE. Haplotypic analysis reported 2 susceptibility haplotypes: TGG (P=0.00421, OR=1.87) in BANK1 and TCA (P=0.00177, OR=2.34) in IRF5 genes. Our results show that numerous genes, some with known immune related function predispose to lupus.