DEFB1 gene polymorphisms and tuberculosis in a Northeastern Brazilian population

Abstract

β-Defensin-1, an antimicrobial peptide encoded by the DEFB1 gene, is known to play animportant role in lung mucosal immunity. In our association study we analyzed three DEFB1functional polymorphisms −52G>A (rs1799946), −44C>G (rs1800972) and −20G>A (rs11362)in 92 tuberculosis patients and 286 healthy controls, both from Northeast Brazil: no associ-ation was found between the studied DEFB1 polymorphisms and the disease. However wecannot exclude that this lack of association could be due to the low number of subjectsanalyzed, as suggested by the low statistical power achieved for the three analyzed SNPs(values between 0.16 and 0.50).