Crohn's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Crohn's Disease, including details on symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, causes, medication.

Definition of polymorphisms and haplotypes in the interleukin-12B gene: association with IL-12 production but not with Crohn's disease.

Zwiers A, Seegers D, Heijmans R, Koch A, Hampe J, Nikolaus S, Peña AS, Schreiber S, Bouma G

Laboratory of Immunogenetics, Vrije Universiteit Medical Center, Van der Boechorststraat 7, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Interleukin-12 (IL-12) is a key cytokine for the induction of Th1 immune responses. Recently, functional polymorphisms in IL-12p40 (IL12B) were found to be associated with susceptibility to several autoimmune diseases. Similarly, variation in IL12B might be involved in susceptibility to Crohn's disease (CD), a chronic inflammatory bowel disorder associated with high IL-12 expression. We searched for additional polymorphism in IL12B and genotyped a large cohort of CD patients. Differential in vitro secretors of IL-12 were tested for polymorphism. Polymorphisms were analyzed using the intrafamilial transmission disequilibrium test (TDT) and by case-control analysis. A novel polymorphism was strongly associated with differential expression of IL-12. However, no association with susceptibility to CD was seen for this and other polymorphisms. The high level of conservation is consistent with the key regulatory role of IL-12. The lack of association with IL12B makes it unlikely that this gene is directly involved in the susceptibility to CD.

Published 1 December 2004 in Genes Immun, 5(8): 675-7.
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