Open Access

ARTICLE

Genetic impact of TNF-β on risk factors for coronary atherosclerosis

Susanne Schulz^1,2, Undraga Schagdarsurengin¹, Dirk Rehfeld^1,2, Thomas Süß^1,2, Karl Werdan², Ursula Müller-Werdan², Christiane Gläser¹

1 Institute of Human Genetics and Medical Biology, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Magdeburger Str. 2, 06097 Halle, Germany
2 Department of Internal Medicine III, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

* Corresponding Author: S. Schulz,

European Cytokine Network 2006, 17(3), 148-154. https://doi.org/10.1684/ecn.2006.0031

Accepted 13 June 2006;

Abstract

Background. Inflammatory processes are considered to play an important role in the development of coronary atherosclerosis. The proinflammatory cytokine, tumor necrosis factor b (TNF-β), is thought to contribute to the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Study design. In this clinical study, the influence of genetic variants of TNF-β (c.7G>A, IVS1+90G>A, C13R, T60N) on major coronary risk factors, including gender, smoking, history of cardiovascular diseases, biochemical data (inflammatory markers, factors of lipid metabolism, coagulation/fibrinolysis balance), and angiographically-proven coronary state, was investigated in 176 European Caucasian probands (130 males, mean age: 51.9 ± 8.9 y). Results. The most frequent combinations of the polymorphisms investigated were significantly associated with four of the coronary risk factors evaluated: hypertension, body mass index, the common inflammatory marker TNF-α (mRNA expression), and fibrinogen (p < 0.05). However, on testing the impact of the genetic background on the incidence of coronary stenosis in this sample of European Caucasians, no significant influence of these polymorphisms (stepwise binary logistic regression analysis) could be proven. These findings emphasise a distinct influence of TNF-β polymorphisms on important modulators of the development of coronary atherosclerosis, but exclude its genetic background, investigated in this study as an independent coronary risk factor.

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Keywords

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