Genetically Determined MBL Deficiency Is Associated with Protection against Chronic Cardiomyopathy in Chagas Disease.

Chagas disease (CD) is caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, whose sugar moieties are recognized by mannan binding lectin (MBL), a soluble pattern-recognition molecule that activates the lectin pathway of complement. MBL levels and protein activity are affected by polymorphisms in the MBL2 gene. We sequenced the MBL2 promoter and exon 1 in 196 chronic CD patients and 202 controls.