The interleukin-6 -174promoter polymorphism is associated with long-term kidney allograft survival

✍ Scribed by Müller-Steinhardt, Michael; Härtel, Christoph; Müller, Brigitte; Kirchner, Holger; Fricke, Lutz

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 71 KB
• Volume: 62
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0085-2538
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1523-1755.2002.00609.x

✦ Synopsis

Background:

Th1-dependent effector mechanisms may be responsible for allograft rejection. recently, interleukin-6 (il-6) has been shown to antagonize cd4+ t cells to effector th2 cells and, in the process, differentiate them into th1 cells.

Methods:

To assess the role of il-6 in long-term allograft survival, 158 patients after first cadaveric kidney transplantation were analyzed for the biallelic -174g-->c promoter polymorphism of the il-6 gene.

Results:

Carriers of the -174c-allele (genotype gc/cc) had an inferior three-year graft survival (71/104 = 68.3%; p = 0.0059) with a 3.7-fold increased relative risk of graft loss compared to carriers of the -174gg-genotype (48/54 = 88.9%). the -174gc/cc-genotype retained its negative impact on graft survival when other established prognostic factors and further cytokine polymorphisms (-308tnf-alpha, tgf-beta1 codon 10 & 25, -592/-819/-1082il-10 and +874ifn-gamma) were considered simultaneously.

Conclusions:

Since the clinical impact on transplant outcome seems as important as matching for histocompatibility antigens, genotyping of the il-6 -174polymorphism may offer a new method for identifying patients at increased risk of allograft loss.