Relationship between polymorphism of DC-SIGN (CD209) gene and the susceptibility to pulmonary tuberculosis in an eastern Chinese population

Dendritic cell–specific intracellular adhesion molecule–3–grabbing nonintegrin (DC-SIGN) is an important receptor for Mycobacterium tuberculosis on human dendritic cells. Previous studies have shown that the variation, especially the −871A/G and −336A/G in DC-SIGN promoter influenced the susceptibility to tuberculosis. We therefore investigated whether polymorphisms in the DC-SIGN gene were associated with susceptibility to tuberculosis in an eastern Chinese population. A total of 237 culture-positive pulmonary tuberculosis case patients and 244 controls were genotyped for −871A/G and −336A/G by pyrosequencing. Our results suggested that the 2 promoter variants of DC-SIGN gene were not associated with susceptibility to tuberculosis in Chinese. Further analysis showed that the allele -336G was associated with a protective effect against fever in pulmonary tuberculosis patients, but not against cavity formation. In addition, we compared the allelic frequencies of −871A/G and −336A/G in African, Caucasian, and Asian groups. The results showed that the tw forms of allelic frequencies detected Chinese individuals in our study were similar to the reported frequencies in other Asian populations but differed significantly from those in the African and Caucasian groups studied.