Smith AJP, Humphries SE. Cytokine and cytokine receptor gene polymorphisms and their functionality.
Cytokine Growth Factor Rev 2008;
20:43-59. [PMID:
19038572 DOI:
10.1016/j.cytogfr.2008.11.006]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 261] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
Cytokines, signaling proteins produced by a variety of cell types, are essential for the development and functioning of both innate and adaptive immune response. Cytokine gene expression is tightly regulated, and aberrant expression from environmental and genetic polymorphism has been implicated in a range of diseases, susceptibility to infections, and responses to treatment. This review concentrates on the functionality of cytokine and cytokine receptor gene polymorphisms; it is through these variants that genuine disease-associations are based. Several mechanisms for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) functionality are present within cytokine genes including: amino acid changes (IL-6R, IL-13, IL-1alpha), exon skipping (IL-7Ralpha), proximal promoter variants (IL-1beta, IL-Ra, IL-2, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12, IL-13, IL-16, TNF, IFN-gamma, TGF-beta), distal promoter variants (IL-6, IL-18) and intronic enhancer variants (IL-8).
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