Association between RANTES functional polymorphisms and tuberculosis in Hong kong chinese

Chemokines play a major role in leukocyte recruitment during the formation of tuberculous granulomas. We studied the association between genetic polymorphisms of three chemokines, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 ( MCP-1), RANTES ( regulated on activation, normal T cell expressed and secreted) and macrophage inflammatory protein-1 alpha ( MIP-1 alpha), and tuberculosis ( TB). The distribution of five functionally significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms ( SNPs), MCP-1-2518A/ G, RANTES-403G/ A,-28C/ G and In1.1T/ C as well as MIP-1 alpha + 459C/ T was not found to be different between patients with TB and healthy control subjects of the Hong Kong Chinese population. However, differences in linkage disequilibrium ( LD) of the SNPs of RANTES and in distribution of the haplotypes of RANTES between patients with TB and healthy controls ( P<0.0001) were found. Two risk haplotypes of RANTES, A-C-T and G-C-C, at positions -403, -28 and In1.1, respectively, were identified. Furthermore, combining the genotypes of RANTES -403 and In1.1, two diplotypes GA/ TT ( P<0.001) and GG/ TC ( P<0.0001) showed strong association with TB. Our findings support the association between RANTES functional polymorphisms and TB.