Associations of killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor genes with complications of rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

We investigated whether killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) genes are risk factor(s) for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and its clinical manifestations. One hundred and seventy-seven RA patients and 243 healthy individuals were tested for the presence of 11 KIR genes using PCR-SSP method. The frequencies of KIRs in patients with RA were similar to the frequencies in controls. However, RA patients positive for KIR2DL3 and negative for KIR2DS3 had earlier disease diagnosis. Additionally, KIR2DL2 and KIR2DS2 were significantly more frequent among RA patients with extra-articular manifestations and in its subgroup with vasculitis than in controls and in patients without these complications. Furthermore, the frequencies of KIR2DS1 and KIR3DS1 were lower in patients without bone erosions compared with healthy individuals. Relationships between the presence or absence of autoantibodies (rheumatoid factor and anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide) and KIR frequencies were also evaluated, but no significant differences were observed. These results suggest that particular clinical manifestations of RA may have different genetic backgrounds with respect to KIR genotype.

Association between KIR gene polymorphisms and rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility: A meta-analysis

“…HWE test was performed on genotype distribution of the control groups, only one [34] of them showed p > 0.05 in HWE, other articles could not be tested because of the lack of raw data. Six [14,20,31,32,34,35] of the nine studies were of high quality (NOS score P 7) and the other three scored six and are shown in Table 1.…”

“…1. Among the nine articles, four [20,22,32,33] were Caucasians, three [21,31,35] were from East Asian countries, one [34] was from India and one [14] was from Latin America. Because of the inadequate sample populations available for the Indian and Latin American group, we performed ethnicity-specific meta-analysis for Caucasian and East Asian populations.…”

“…The associations between KIR genes and autoimmune diseases have been widely reported, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) [20][21][22], ankylosing spondylitis (AS) [23,24], systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) [25], psoriasis [26,27], pemphigus foliaceus [28], scleroderma [25], multiple sclerosis [29], diabetes [30], etc. Plentiful case-control studies have investigated the association between these KIR gene polymorphisms and RA risk, but findings are not always consistent [14,[20][21][22][31][32][33][34][35]. In addition, until now, nobody performed a meta-analysis to estimate the association of KIR polymorphisms with RA risk.…”

Killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) genes in systemic sclerosis

“…This combination of genes has also been implicated in the pathogenesis of other rheumatic diseases. In rheumatoid arthritis, the presence of KIR2DS2 was related to vasculitis [25]. Another study observed an association of KIR2DS2 in the absence of ligands of KIR2DL2 with increased risk of psoriatic arthritis [26].…”

Association of killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors and human leukocyte antigen–C genotypes in South Brazilian with type 1 diabetes

“…KIR genotypes and HLA ligand patterns have been recognized for diseases and disease conditions such as hepatitis C [18], psoriasis vulgaris [19,20], psoriatic arthritis [21,22], rheumatoid arthritis [23], celiac disease [24], ulcerative colitis [25,26], Crohn's disease [27], human immunodeficiency virus [28], recurrent miscarriage [29], and leprosy [30], as well as in T1D [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39].…”