Genetic and expression deregulation of immunoregulatory genes in rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of the most common autoimmune diseases globally, and is an important public health concern, associating with early death and systemic complications. Although key development in RA treatment has already been made still RA affected individuals face comorbidity and disability. Therefore, there is a need to discover new risk factors in helping early diagnosis and treatment of RA. The present study is designed to assess the variations of Vitamin D receptor (VDR) and interleukin -6 (IL-6) in RA patients. Polymorphisms of said genes were calculated in 300 RA patients and 300 controls, using Tetra-ARMS polymerase chain reaction. Secondly, expression levels of selected genes were checked using the quantitative PCR (qPCR) and obtained results were evaluated using a different statistical test. Logistic regression analysis showed that frequency of mutant allele of VDR gene polymorphisms (rs11168268, OR = 4.84; 95% CI = 2.94-7.97; p = 0.0001; rs2248098, OR = 1.65; 95% CI = 1.07-2.54; p = 0.02) and IL-6 gene polymorphisms (rs184229712, OR = 2.47; 95% CI = 1.56-3.92, p = 0.0001; rs36215814, OR = 2.14; 95% CI = 1.30-3.53; p = 0.002) was observed significantly higher in RA patients vs controls. Expression analysis showed the significant upregulation of IL-6 (p < 0.0001) and downregulation of VDR gene (p < 0.0001) in RA cases vs controls. ROC curve analysis showed that downregulation of IL-6 (AUC = 0.86, p < 0.001) and upregulation of VDR (AUC = 0.77, p < 0.001) was act as the good diagnostic marker for detection/diagnosis of arthritis. In conclusions, data from the present study showed the significant involvement of VDR and IL-6 gene variations in RA pathogenesis.