Associations of six common functional polymorphisms in interleukins with tuberculosis: evidence from a meta-analysis

Background: Associations of polymorphisms in interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-8 and IL-10 with tuberculosis (TB) susceptibility were already reported by many publications. The aim of this meta-analysis was to more precisely clarify associations between polymorphisms in IL-6/IL-8/IL-10 and TB by combing the results of all relevant publications. Methods: Eligible publications were searched from PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and CNKI. We used Review Manager to combine the results of individual studies. Results: A total of 47 publications were included in this study. IL-6 rs1800795 (1750 cases and 2335 controls, dominant, recessive and allele comparisons), IL-8 rs4073 (1125 cases and 1188 controls, dominant, recessive and allele comparisons), IL-10 rs1800871 (5528 cases and 7671 controls, dominant, recessive and allele comparisons), IL-10 rs1800872 (5269 cases and 7013 controls, dominant and allele comparisons) and IL-10 rs1800896 (7564 cases and 8952 controls, recessive comparison) polymorphisms were all significantly associated with TB in overall combined analyses. In subgroup analyses, we found that the positive results were mainly driven by the pulmonary tuberculosis and Asian subgroups. Conclusions: Collectively, this meta-analysis proved that IL-6 rs1800795, IL-8 rs4073, IL-10 rs1800871, IL-10 rs1800872 and IL-10 rs1800896 may confer susceptibility to TB.