Introduction: Celiac disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory intestinal disorder. Different immunological factors, including inflammatory cytokines, may play an important role in disease susceptibility.
Aim: To investigate the relationship between -174G/C and -572G/C gene polymorphisms and the serum level of interleukin 6 (IL-6) and susceptibility to CD in the Iranian population.
Material and methods: In this case-control study blood samples were collected of 105 patients with CD and 106 healthy subjects randomly in 2016 and evaluated by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragments length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. A sequence was also used to confirm the results of both polymorphisms. The IL-6 concentration was measured using ELISA.
Results: The results showed a significant relationship between polymorphism -572G in CD patients when compared with control subjects by genotype (p = 0.001) and alleles (p = 0.022), respectively. There was no significant relationship between polymorphism 174G and frequency of genotype, but an association of this polymorphism with the frequency of alleles (p = 0.034), age (p = 0.001), and body mass index (p = 0.003) was seen. The serum level of interleukin-6 was significantly associated only with rs1800796 (p < 0.001).
Conclusions: The results confirm previous studies in different parts of the world and indicate that IL-6 (572G/C) polymorphism may play a role in susceptibility to CD in the Iranian population.
Keywords: IL-6 gene polymorphism; autoimmune and inflammatory reaction; celiac disease; polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragments length polymorphism.