Association of erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein and clinical findings with HLA-DQ8 allele in Rheumatoid Arthritis patients

Abstract

Background ― Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory, autoimmune disease induced by certain auto-antigens. HLA-DRB1*0401 allele has a significant relationship with RA incident. Additionally, DQβ1*0301, *302(DQ8), *303, and *304 can increase RA risk especially in DQA1*0301 and *302 coincident. Recent studies suggest that distribution of this allele is different in various populations Material and Methods ― 70 patients and 70 healthy controls were analyzed for human leukocyte antigen (HLA) allele by specific primer-polymerase chain reaction (SSP-PCR) method. Patients were evaluated in terms of ESR and CRP. Data analysis was performed in SPSS V.17. Results ― HLA-DQ8 allele was significantly more frequent in RA patients compared to control (P<0.0001). However, no significant relationship was observed between increased ESR (P=0.527), CRP (P=0.505), and mean counts of arthritic (P=0.691) and tender joints (P=0.669) among the patients who were carriers of HLA-DQ8. Conclusion ― There is a significant association between RA and HLA-DQ8 allele, this allele can increase susceptibility to RA. These findings might relate to the ethnical variations of RA patients but we couldn't find a significant association between CRP and ESR with HLA-DQ8. We recommend to add specific inflammatory markers to CRP as well as assess ESR in larger sample sizes to obtain accurate results.