Background. Severe tuberculosis has a high mortality rate and poses a great threat to human safety. Host gene single nucleotide polymorphisms can influence the severity of tuberculosis.
Methods. A case‒control study was conducted in 1137 patients with tuberculosis and 581 healthy controls with ages ranging from fifteen to forty-five years old.
Among the tuberculosis patients, there were 558 severe and 579 mild cases.Whole blood DNA was extracted from all patients. Three tag polymorphisms (rs18844444, rs7518660, rs7539625) of the IL23R gene were selected and genotyped.
Results. No significant association was found between rs18844444, rs7518660, and rs7539625 of the IL23R gene and tuberculosis infection. Even through the comparison of the tuberculosis group and healthy control group, mild tuberculosis group and healthy control group, and severe tuberculosis and healthy control group, we found that the P values were > 0.05 . However, in the comparison between severe tuberculosis and mild tuberculosis, rs18844444 G alleles showed a significantly increased risk of severe tuberculosis infection after adjusting for age and sex (ORa: 1.199, 95% CI: 1.009-1.424; Pa=0.039, respectively). In the subgroup analysis, rs18844444 of the IL23R gene showed a significant association with the risk of severe tuberculosis infection in the comparison between severe pulmonary tuberculosis and mild tuberculosis after adjusting for age and sex (ORa: 1.301, 95% CI: 1.030-1.643; Pa=0.027, respectively). The rs18844444 G allele also showed a significantly increased risk of severe tuberculosis infection after adjusting for age and sex in a comparison between tuberculous meningitis and mild tuberculosis (ORa: 1.646, 95% CI: 1.100-2.461; Pa=0.015, respectively).
Conclusions. IL23R gene polymorphism is not associated with tuberculosis susceptibility in the Chinese Han population but may be associated with an increased risk of severe tuberculosis infection.