Association ofNOD1,CXCL16,STAT6andTLR4gene polymorphisms with Malaysian patients with Crohn’s disease

Abstract

Crohn’s disease (CD) is a prominent type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract. CD is known to have higher prevalence in the Western countries, but the number of cases has been increasing in the past decades in Asia, including Malaysia. Therefore, there is a need to investigate the underlining causes of CD that may shed light on its prevention and treatment. In this study, genetic polymorphisms inNOD1(rs2075820),CXCL16(rs2277680),STAT6(rs324015) andTLR4(rs4986791) genes were examined in a total of 335 individuals (85 CD patients and 250 healthy controls) with PCR-RFLP approach. There was no significant association observed betweenNOD1rs2075820 andSTAT6rs324015 with the onset of CD in the studied cohort. However, the G allele ofCXCL16rs2277680 was found to have a weak association with CD patients (P= 0.0482;OR= 1.4310). TheTLR4rs4986791 was also significantly associated to CD. Both the homozygous C genotype (P= 0.0029;OR= 0.3611) and C allele (P= 0.0069;OR= 0.4369) were observed to confer protection against CD. On the other hand, the heterozygous C/T genotype was a risk genotype (P= 0.0015;OR= 3.1392). Further ethnic-stratified analysis showed that the significant associations inCXCL16rs2277680 andTLR4rs4986791 were accounted by the Malay cohort. In conclusion, the present study reported two CD-predisposing loci in the Malay CD patients. However, these loci were not associated to the onset of CD in Chinese and Indian patients.