Analysis of polymorphisms in interleukin-10, interleukin-6, and interleukin-1 receptor antagonist in Mexican-Mestizo women with pre-eclampsia

Due to the fact that studies seeking associations of polymorphisms in regulatory regions of cytokine genes with pre-eclampsia (PE) have not always been consistent in different population analyses, the aim of this study was to investigate the possible association between rs1800896 of interleukin-10 (IL-10), rs1800795 of interleukin-6 (IL-6), and the variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) in intron 2 of interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra), as well as gene-gene interactions between these three polymorphisms with the presence of PE in Mexican-Mestizo women and one Amerindian population from México (Maya). A case-control study was performed where 411 pre-eclamptic cases and 613 controls were genotyped. For the rs1800896 of IL-10 and rs1800795 of IL-6, we used real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) allelic discrimination and for the VNTR of IL-1Ra, PCR. Allele frequency differences were assessed by Chi-squared test; logistic regression was used to test for associations; a gene-gene interaction was conducted. Genotypic and allelic distribution of the polymorphisms was similar in our population. The estimated of the gene-gene interaction between the polymorphisms did not differ significantly. However, we observed important differences in the distribution of the alleles and genotypes of the three polymorphisms analyzed between Mestiza-Mexicanas and Maya-Mestizo women. In conclusion, we did not find an association between polymorphisms in IL-10, IL-6, and IL-1Ra and PE in Mexican-Mestizo and Maya-Mestizo women. To our knowledge, this is the first time that these three polymorphisms were analyzed together with gene-gene interaction in women with PE.