Genetic biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment of spondyloarthropathies in Moroccan population

Abstract

BackgroundThe spondyloarthropathies (SpA) are inflammatory rheumatologic diseases whose pathogenesis comes from interaction between genetic and environmental factors. MethodsThis is a case-control analysis that aims to explore in Moroccan population the relationship of some allelic polymorphisms of the CTLA-4 CT60, FCGR3A-158G/T SNPs and HLA-B locus with SpA disease. Eighty-four Spa patients grouped according to pain site and 95 healthy individuals from Morocco were typed by sequence-based-typing methods. ResultsThe CTLA-4 CT60 investigation showed a significantly increased frequency of rs11571319 A allele in male patients with sacroiliitis (pcorr. = 0.048, OR = 2.756) and a protective role of A/G genotype in SPA patients with thoracic spine (pcorr. = 0.016, OR = 0.055) and peripheral joints pain (pcorr. = 0.036 OR = 0.068), compared to controls. Furthermore, a significant increase of A/A in rs3087243 was shown in male patients with peripheral joints pain (p = 0.035 OR = 4.45). Data from FCGR3A-158 analysis evidenced a reduction of T/T (F/F) genotype in patients with thoracic spine pain (p = 0.030, OR = 0.09) and a higher frequency of G/T (F/V) (p = 0.038 OR = 5.045) towards controls. With regard to HLA-B locus, we noticed a protective role of HLA-B*45:01 (pcorr. = 0.033,OR = 0.041) and an increased frequency of HLA-B*51 alleles (51:01, 51:02, 51:08, 51:09, 51:29) and B*52:01:01 (p = 0.041,OR = 2.714), in addition to HLA-B*27 alleles (p = 0.028, OR = 2.593) commonly associated with AS pathologies. ConclusionsOur data suggest the role of some additional CTLA-4, FCGR3A and HLA-B gene polymorphisms in SPA pathogenesis of Moroccan population, useful as new diagnostic biomarkers and targets for immunotherapy.