The Methylation in and Genes are Associated with the Risk of Pulmonary Tuberculosis.

Background: The important roles of B7 homologous body 4 (), B and T lymphocyte attenuator () in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) have been reported. This study aims to evaluate the association among and genes polymorphism, methylation and PTB susceptibility.

Methodology: Here, we assessed the possible relationship of 10 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes with PTB susceptibility in a Chinese population (496 PTB patients and 502 controls) by SNPscan technique. Then, the genes methylation levels among 98 PTB patients and 97 controls were detected using MethylTarget technique.

Results: This study found no significant differences in allele and genotype frequencies of gene rs10754339, rs10801935, rs10923223, rs1937956, rs3738414, gene rs1982809, rs2971205, rs75368388, rs9288953 variants between PTB patients and controls. Haplotype analysis suggested that the lower frequencies of AATTG haplotype, GATT haplotype and the higher frequency of AGTC haplotype were found in PTB patients when compared with controls. We also found that the frequency of gene rs9288953 C allele was significantly increased in PTB patients with drug resistance. Moreover, the methylation levels of and genes in PTB patients were greater than that in controls, and rs10754339 variant in gene could affect its methylation level in PTB patients.

Conclusion: genes polymorphism might not affect PTB susceptibility, while the abnormal methylation levels of genes were associated with the genetic background of PTB.