Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 13, 2025

Author Spotlight: Exploring the Role of Inflammation in the Co-occurrence of Primary Sjogren's Syndrome and Lung Adenocarcinoma
Published on: September 20, 2024
Interleukin-37: associations of plasma levels and genetic variants in gout
Lucie Andres Cerezo1,2, Adéla Navrátilová1,2, Hana Hulejová1
1Institute of Rheumatology, Na Slupi 4, 128 50, Prague 2, Czech Republic.
Objectives:
IL-37 is an anti-inflammatory cytokine involved in inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. We aimed to investigate the association between IL-37 genetic variants, IL-37 plasma levels, and various clinical phases of gout.
Methods:
The study included a control group with no history of primary hyperuricemia/gout, (n = 50), asymptomatic hyperuricemia (n = 74), intercritical gout (n = 200), acute gouty flare (n = 18), and chronic tophaceous gout (n = 30). Plasma IL-37 was analysed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. All coding regions and intron-exon boundaries of IL-37 and exons 1-5 were amplified and sequenced.
Results:
Plasma levels of IL-37 were significantly higher in asymptomatic hyperuricemic (p = 0.045), intercritical gout (p = 0.001), and chronic tophaceous gout (p = 0.021) cohorts when compared to control group. The levels of IL-37 in patients with acute gouty flare were comparable to control group (p = 0.061). We identified 15 genetic variants of IL-37: eight intron (rs2708959, rs2723170, rs2708958, rs2723169 rs2466448, rs3811045, rs3811048, rs2708944) and seven non-synonymous allelic variants (rs3811046, rs3811047, rs2708943, rs2723183, rs2723187, rs2708947, rs27231927), of which rs2708959 showed an over-presentation in gouty and acute flare cohorts (p = 0.003 and 0.033, respectively) compared to European population (minor allelic frequency MAF = 0.05) but not in control and hyperuricemic cohorts (p/MAF = 0.17/0.08 and 0.71/0.05, respectively).. On the contrary, rs3811045, rs3811046, rs3811047, and rs3811048 were underrepresented among individuals with tophaceous gout (MAF = 0.57) compared to European MAF 0.70-0.71, but not compared to the control cohort (MAF = 0.67).
Conclusions:
We demonstrated the up-regulation of IL-37 levels across the clinical phases of gout: asymptomatic hyperuricemia, intercritical, and chronic tophaceous gout compared to control. Moreover, 15 genetic variants of IL-37 were identified and their associations with the clinical variants of gout were evaluated.
More Related Videos
05:53Candidate Gene Testing in Clinical Cohort Studies with Multiplexed Genotyping and Mass Spectrometry
Published on: June 21, 2018
06:35An Immunohistopathologic Study to Profile the Folate Receptor Beta Macrophage and Vascular Immune Microenvironment in Giant Cell Arteritis
Published on: February 8, 2019
Related Concept Videos
Genome-wide Association Studies-GWAS
GWAS does not require the identification of the target gene involved in...
T Cell Types and Functions
Th1 cells stimulate dendritic cells to express necessary co-stimulatory molecules on their surfaces for...
The JAK-STAT Signaling Pathway
Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms-SNPs