Lack of Association between Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha (TNFα) Gene -1031C/T Polymorphisms and Susceptibility to Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) includes two basic categories ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) that the etiology of which remains unclear. Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) promoter polymorphisms are a good candidate for susceptibility to IBD as there is a significant relationship between them. The main aim of this study was to assess TNFα gene polymorphisms with IBD susceptibility at positions -1031in Iranian patients.
In this case-control study, were studied 101 patients with IBD (86 ulcerative colitis, 15 Crohn's disease) and 100 healthy controls were studied. PCR-RFLP (Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism) was used for determining of genotyping. In following, allele frequency and genotype distribution of polymorphism T> C in TNFα gene between the case and control groups were typed.
The frequency of genotype TT, TC and CC among patients was 64.4%, 28.7% and 6.9% and in control group was 63%, 29% and 8%, respectively. Also, allele frequency T-1031 of TNFα gene in IBD patients was high, while there is no statistical significant(p>0.05).
There was no significant correlation between TNFα gene polymorphisms and susceptibility to IBD at position -1031. Our results showed that TNFα gene polymorphisms cannot be considered as a potential prognostic marker cause of IBD in Iranian population.