A variant allele of the Mediterranean-fever gene increases the severity of gout

Familial Mediterranean Fever Gene Mutations and Gout as an Auto-Inflammatory Arthropathy

Introduction:

The auto-inflammatory diseases (AID) are a heterogeneous group of multi-system disorders of innate immunity dysregulation. MEFV gene has major role in AID.

Aim:

The aim of this study is to investigate the frequency of MEFV variant alleles in gout patients as an AID and their genotype-phenotype relationship.

Methods:

Total amount of 224 of the healthy people as a control group (113 male and 111 female) and 24 gouty arthritis patients (20 male and 4 female) entered this study. Blood samples screened for the 12 common pathogenic mutations according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Results:

The mean age of patients was 54 years. MTP joint was the most involved joint (91.66%). Mutations were shown in 5 patients (20.83%) that were not different from healthy population (25%). Five patients carry one mutated MEFV allele, E148Q in 4 patients and V726A in 1 patient. Control group showed 25% mutations as E148Q (18.3%), P369S (3.1%), V726A (2.2%), A744S (1.3%) respectively. The most common mutation detected in patients was E148Q (16.66%) and all of them were males. No significant and meaningful associations were detected between the MEFV gene mutations and gouty arthritis patients.

Conclusion:

There was not any correlation between MEFV gene mutations carriage with age, sex, the number of joint involvement and the course of disease in gouty arthritis. MEFV gene mutations were more frequent in men than women, but this is not statistically significant.