Abstract:

Objective: There are studies that suggest that the IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra) A2 allele may be associated with a long-term and severe proinflammatory immune response in various autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases, including rheumatic valvular heart disease (RVHD). However, studies on the relationship of the IL-1Ra variant in the pathogenesis of RVHD are very limited. The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is a relationship between IL-1Ra rs2234663 variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) variants and RVHD susceptibility and/or disease severity in Turkish patients. Material and Method: In this case-control study (165 RVHD/300 controls), we genotyped IL-1Ra VNTR using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method. Results: There was a statistically significant difference in genotype and allele frequencies between patients and controls (p<0.001). The A1 allele frequency was found to be significantly higher in RVHD patients compared to the control group (p=0.004; OR=3.821; 95% CI=1.459-10.005). The A3 allele showed a statistically significant increase in the patient group compared to the control group (p=0.034; OR=2.536; 95% CI=1.045-6.152). Genotype distributions were statistically significantly different between patients with severe and mild valve damage (p=0.031). The A2 allele was statis-tically higher in patients with severe valve damage compared to patients with mild valve damage (p=0.003). Conclusion:IL-1Ra VNTR can be recommended as a suitable biomarker that can be used to identify susceptible individuals in terms of RVHD susceptibility in the Turkish population.