RESUMO
ABSTRACT: Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disease of multifactorial etiology in which genetic factors and cytokines seem to play an important role. The aim of this study was to investigate potential associations of cytokines single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and MG in Algerian patients. We performed a case-control study that included 27 patients and 74 healthy subjects. Cytokines SNPs genotyping was performed by the polymerase chain reaction sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP) method. Our results showed that the TNF-α -308G/A (P < 0.005) and TGF-ß1 +869T/T (P < 0.05) genotypes were more frequent among patients with MG compared with healthy individuals, whereas TNF-α -308G/G (P < 0.0001), TGF-ß1 +869T/C (P < 0.05), and IFN-γ +874A/A (P < 0.05) were less frequent. Our results also showed that IL-10 and IL-6 SNPs did not show any significant difference in distribution between MG patients and healthy individuals. Our observations support the hypothesis that implicates genetic variants of certain cytokines in MG. However, ours results should be replicated with a larger sample size. In addition, the precise underlying processes remain to be clarified. HIGHLIGHTS: TNF-α -308G/A and TGF-ß1 +869T/C genotypes predispose to MG.IFN-γ +874A/A genotype protects against MG.IL-6 -174C/G SNP is not associated with MG.