Background: Only a minority of ethanol abusers develop advanced chronic alcoholic liver disease (CALD). In CALD there is a imbalance between TNF alpha and IL-10, which may be modulated by several polymorphisms at both genetic loci. Our aim has been to elucidate the possible relation between these polymorphisms and the risk of CALD.
Patients and methods: 147 patients with advanced CALD and 355 healthy controls (all white Spaniards) were included. TNF alpha biallelic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) at positions -238, -308, and -376 and IL-10 biallelic SNP at positions -597, - 824, and - 1087 were investigated by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and dot blot hybridization. Moreover, polymorphic microsatellites TNFa, TNFb, IL-10.R and IL-10.G were investigated in a multiplex PCR and alleles were estimated in an automatic sequencer.
Results: No differences were found in the distribution of any of the studied polymorphisms, except by an excess of the haplotype formed by the allele 11 of the microsatellite IL-10.G and the GCC arrangement of the SNPs at the promoter of IL-10 gene in patients (15.7 vs. 8.24%, odds ratio: 2.08, 95% C.I. = 1.31-3.31).
Conclusions: The studied polymorphisms at TNF alpha and IL-10 genetic loci are not clearly related to the risk of CALD. The excess of G11-GCC haplotype found in CALD patients needs independent confirmation.