42. Laboratory immune parameters of normal humans vary by cytokine receptor polymorphisms

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that Th1/Th2 cytokine imbalance is correlated with excess psychological stress although there are clearly individual differences in the responses to the same stressor. These differences may derive from cytokine receptor configuration and/or binding affinity, which could be influenced by single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We categorized differences in immunoregulatory profiles from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 209 normal volunteers according to various cytokine receptor polymorphisms including T-56C and G-611A of IFNGR1, Q64R of IFNGR2, and Ile50Val, Q576R and S503P of IL4R. Genotyping of each polymorphism was performed by allelic discrimination real-time PCR, and Th1, Th2, Th1/Th2 ratio, and CD3+CD4+CD25hiFoxp3+ cell numbers were also measured using flow cytometry. Results showed that Th1 levels were higher for males than for females in CC group but not in TT and CT groups of T-56C ( p = 0.002) and in AA group but not in GG and GA groups of G-611A ( p = 0.013). In Q64R, Th2 was positively correlated with age in Gln/Arg genotype but not in Gln/Gln ( p = 0.009). For Q576R, Th1/Th2 ratio was lower for Arg/Arg compared to Gln/Gln ( p = 0.035). For S503P, Th1/Th2 ratio decreased with an increase in age for Ser/Ser but not for Ser/Pro ( p = 0.030). We conclude that SNPs from various components of the stress-immune network may be useful for categorizing baseline immune responses to more accurately evaluate immunological components of stress risk in individual subjects.