Tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin-6 and interleukin-10 polymorphisms in preeclampsia

Preeclampsia (PE) is one of the most serious disorders of pregnancy. The imbalance between pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines may play a role in its etiology. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether cytokine gene polymorphism is associated with PE, and to evaluate the relationship between genotypes and clinical/laboratory manifestation of PE.

We investigated single nucleotide polymorphisms of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)alpha(-308 G/A), interleukin (IL)-6 (-174 G/C), IL-10 (-1082 G/A) genes in DNA from peripheral blood leukocytes of 101 PE patients and 95 healthy control women.

In PE, there was a significant increase of the IL-10 (-1082) A allele frequency (P = 0.04). No significant differences were found in genotypes or allele frequencies of TNFalpha(-308) and IL-6 (-174) genes between PE women and controls. While TNFalpha(-308) and IL-6 (-174) genotypes did not influence clinical/laboratory parameters in PE, IL-10 (-1082) A allele carrying genotypes (AG + AA) were associated with higher glucose and lower HDL-cholesterol levels.

Because women with IL-10 (-1082) AA genotype have 3.38-fold increased risk of developing PE according to GG genotype (95% CI 1.21-9.4, P = 0.01), we suggest that IL-10 (-1082) variant A allele is associated with an increased risk of preeclampsia, which is independent from its metabolic effects.