¹Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Bristol, Homoeopathic Hospital Site, Cotham, Bristol BS6 6JU, UK

²University of Glasgow Department of Surgery, Queen Elizabeth Building, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Glasgow G31 2ER, Scotland

³Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, Tinsley Harrison Tower, Room 429, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1900 University Boulevard, Birmingham, AL 35294-0006, USA

⁴Leiden University Medical Center, Department of Rheumatology, C4-R, P.O. Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands

⁵Medical Unit, St. Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospital School of Medicine and Dentistry, Whitechapel, London E1 1BB, UK

⁶Department of Neurology, University of California San Francisco, 513 Parnassus Ave., San Francisco, CA 94143-0435, USA

⁷HIV Immunology and Diagnostics Branch, Division of AIDS, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control, Mailstop A25, 1600 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA

⁸Steno Diabetes Center, Niels Steensensvej 2, DK-2820 Gentofte, Denmark

⁹Institut für Humangenetik, Universitätsklinikum Essen, Hufelandstr. 55, 45122 Essen, Germany

¹⁰Dipartimento Scienze Mediche, Via Solaroli 17, 28100 Növara, Italy

Correspondence to: Dr JL Bidwell, University of Bristol Department of Pathology and Microbiology, Homoeopathic Hospital Site, Cotham, Bristol BS6 6JU, UK

The pathologies of many infectious, autoimmune and malignant diseases are influenced by the profiles of cytokine production in pro-inflammatory (TH1) and anti-inflammatory (TH2) T cells. Interindividual differences in cytokine profiles appear to be due, at least in part, to allelic polymorphism within regulatory regions of cytokine gene. Many studies have examined the relationship between cytokine gene polymorphism, cytokine gene expression in vitro, and the susceptibility to and clinical severity of diseases. A review of the findings of these studies is presented. An on-line version featuring appropriate updates is accessible from the World Wide Web site, http://www.pam.bris.ac.uk/services/GAI/cytokine4.htm.

cytokines; gene polymorphism; gene expression