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Investigation of the role of IL17A gene variants in Chagas disease

Genes & Immunity volume 16, pages 536–540 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Human host genetic factors have been suggested to be determinants of the prevalence and clinical forms of Chagas disease. In this regard, IL-17A is believed to control parasitemia and protect against heart disease. In this work, we assessed whether IL17A gene polymorphisms are related to infection and/or development of the cardiac form of Chagas disease by genotyping for five IL17A SNPs (rs4711998, rs8193036, rs3819024, rs2275913 and rs7747909) in 1171 individuals from a Colombian region endemic for Chagas disease, classified as seronegative (n=595), seropositive asymptomatic (n=175) and chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy (n=401). Our results showed that SNP rs8193036, which is located upstream of the coding region of the gene, was slightly associated with protection against T. cruzi infection (P=0.0170, PFDR=0.0851, odds ratio (OR)=0.80, confidence interval (CI)=0.66–0.96) and associated with protection against the development of cardiomyopathy (P=0.0065, PFDR=0.0324, OR=0.75, CI=0.60–0.92). This finding suggests that this IL17A polymorphism could be associated with Trypanosoma cruzi infection and the development of chronic cardiomyopathy due to differential expression of cytokine IL-17A.

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Acknowledgements

This work is part of the doctoral thesis ‘Estudio de las bases genéticas de la enfermedad de Chagas’ from the Biomedicine PhD program at the Universidad de Granada (Spain). This work has received support from the grant nº 1102-519-29071 from the Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación, Colciencias, and the Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia.

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Author notes

  1. C I González and J Martin: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Parasitología y Biomedicina López-Neyra, IPBLN-CSIC, P.T.S., Granada, Spain

    D A Leon Rodriguez & J Martin

  2. Clínica de Falla Cardíaca y Trasplante, Fundación Cardiovascular de Colombia, Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia

    L E Echeverría

  3. Grupo de Inmunología y Epidemiología Molecular, GIEM, Facultad de Salud, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia

    C I González

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  1. D A Leon Rodriguez
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Correspondence to J Martin.

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Leon Rodriguez, D., Echeverría, L., González, C. et al. Investigation of the role of IL17A gene variants in Chagas disease. Genes Immun 16, 536–540 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/gene.2015.42

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