Lack of association of the CD14/C -- 159T polymorphism with susceptibility and progression parameters in Turkish multiple sclerosis patients.

Soluble (s) CD14, being a receptor for lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) may inhibit LPS-triggered apoptosis and T lymphocyte proliferation. C to T exchange at position -159 in the promoter region of the CD14 gene might lead to higher sCD14 levels. Limited number of groups have studied whether these polymorphisms might influence the development of organ specific autoimmunity and whether higher CD14 levels are associated with increased levels of cytokines trigerring inflammatory processes. However their data contradict each other. In this study serum levels of sCD14 based on ELISA were measured in 77 treatment-naive patients and in 67 healthy controls. As the C-159T proximal promoter region regulates sCD14 levels, we investigated whether C-159T polymorphism is related to progression index in 250 MS patients vs. 183 healthy controls. CD14 polymorphism frequency between the healthy controls and the MS patients were not significantly different. While TT genotype of MS patients demonstrated significantly lower sCD14 levels compared to CC genotype; this difference was not reflected on the disease progression index. Our study that extends the prior data of previous studies reflects that sCD14 do not appear to be a solely prominent element of innate immunity in MS.