PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Bolstad, Anne Isine
AU  - Le Hellard, Stephanie
AU  - Kristjansdottir, Gudlaug
AU  - Vasaitis, Lilian
AU  - Kvarnström, Marika
AU  - Sjöwall, Christopher
AU  - Johnsen, Svein Joar Auglænd
AU  - Eriksson, Per
AU  - Omdal, Roald
AU  - Brun, Johan G
AU  - Wahren-Herlenius, Marie
AU  - Theander, Elke
AU  - Syvänen, Ann-Christine
AU  - Rönnblom, Lars
AU  - Nordmark, Gunnel
AU  - Jonsson, Roland
TI  - Association between genetic variants in the tumour necrosis factor/lymphotoxin α/lymphotoxin β locus and primary Sjögren's syndrome in Scandinavian samples
AID  - 10.1136/annrheumdis-2011-200446
DP  - 2012 Jun 01
TA  - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases
PG  - 981--988
VI  - 71
IP  - 6
4099  - http://ard.bmj.com/content/71/6/981.short
4100  - http://ard.bmj.com/content/71/6/981.full
SO  - Ann Rheum Dis2012 Jun 01; 71
AB  - Objectives Lymphotoxin β (LTB) has been found to be upregulated in salivary glands of patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS). An animal model of pSS also showed ablation of the lymphoid organisation and a marked improvement in salivary gland function on blocking the LTB receptor pathway. This study aimed to investigate whether single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the lymphotoxin α (LTA)/LTB/tumour necrosis factor (TNF) gene clusters are associated with pSS. Methods 527 pSS patients and 532 controls participated in the study, all of Caucasian origin from Sweden and Norway. 14 SNP markers were genotyped and after quality control filtering, 12 SNP were analysed for their association with pSS using single marker and haplotype tests, and corrected by permutation testing. Results Nine markers showed significant association with pSS at the p=0.05 level. Markers rs1800629 and rs909253 showed the strongest genotype association (p=1.64E-11 and p=4.42E-08, respectively, after correcting for sex and country of origin). When the analysis was conditioned for the effect of rs1800629, only the association with rs909253 remained nominally significant (p=0.027). In haplotype analyses the strongest effect was observed for the haplotype rs909253G_rs1800629A (p=9.14E-17). The associations were mainly due to anti-Ro/SSA and anti-La/SSB antibody-positive pSS. Conclusions A strong association was found between several SNP in the LTA/LTB/TNFα locus and pSS, some of which led to amino acid changes. These data suggest a role for this locus in the development of pSS. Further studies are needed to examine if the genetic effect described here is independent of the known genetic association between HLA and pSS.