Abstract
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), the most common autoimmune inflammatory disease of the joints, is a multifactorial disease, involving both genetic and environmental risk factors. TNFAIP3 (tumor necrosis factor, alpha-induced protein 3) gene located in a region of genetic susceptibility in RA is an attractive candidate to be involved in autoimmunity disorders. Our aim was to test the single nucleotide polymorphism rs6920220 located near TNFAIP3 in a case–control study in Tunisian population. The rare allele rs6920220-A was reported to have a risk effect on RA in several genome-wide association studies. Our results revealed a trend of an association of rs6920220-A allele with RA and genotypes containing this allele were in a higher proportion in RA patients than in matched controls. These findings have to be confirmed by a replication in largest RA and control groups of the same ethnic origin. TNFAIP3 gene may have a key role in autoimmunity through its action as a negative regulator of the NF-κB pathway. Further functional investigations are required to understand the mechanism by which this gene is involved in the RA pathogenesis.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Association Française des Polyarthritiques, Association Rhumatisme et Travail, European Union for AutoCure via EU FP 6 program: LSHM-CT-2005-018661 and Ministère de l’enseignement supérieur et de la technologie of Tunisie.
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Ben Hamad, M., Cornelis, F., Maalej, A. et al. A Tunisian case–control association study of a 6q polymorphism in rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatol Int 32, 1849–1850 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-011-1996-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-011-1996-6