The Study of the Association Between Vitamin D Receptor Common Genetic Polymorphisms and Susceptibility to Pulmonary Tuberculosis

In addition to exposure to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), development of tuberculosis is influenced by environmental and host genetic factors, and clinical disease only occurs in less than 10% of the infected individuals. Vitamin D metabolism leads to activation of macrophages and restricts the intracellular growth of mycobacterium. This effect may be influenced by polymorphisms in the vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene. In the present study we investigated the impact of VDR gene variation in susceptibility to pulmonary tuberculosis. This study was a case-control analysis in an Iranian population. We evaluated four VDR gene polymorphisms [defined by the presence of restriction endonuclease sites for FokI (F/f), BsmI (B/b), TaqI (T/t), and ApaI (A/a)] in 96 patients with tuberculosis and 122 matched healthy controls. A modified polymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP) technique was used to identify these polymorphisms in VDR gene simultaneously.Chi square was used for data analysis. Comparison of allele and genotype frequencies for the above VDR gene polymorphic sites revealed no significant difference between patient and control groups. This data may rule out the importance of VDR gene polymorphisms in susceptibility to tuberculosis among Iranian population.