Mannose-Binding Lectin () gene polymorphisms in susceptibility to pulmonary tuberculosis among the Lur population of Lorestan Province of Iran.

Objective: Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by infection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Host genetic variability is an important determinant of the risk of developing TB in humans. Although the association between polymorphisms and TB has been studied in various populations, the results are controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate mannose-binding lectin () gene polymorphisms with susceptibility to pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) in a Lur population of Iran.

Methods: In this case-control study, four functional gene polymorphisms (, , and ) were genotyped by using PCR Single Strand Conformation Polymorphism (SSCP) technique in a Lur population living in Lorestan Province, consisting of 100 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) age and sex matched 100 healthy controls (HCs). Association analyses were performed with the SPSS 21 statistical software.

Results: We found that () genotype polymorphism significantly was associated with increased susceptibility to TB (35% in patients vs. 22% in controls, P = 0.0417, OR = 1.909, %95 CI = 1.020-3.573). Additionally, allele showed a significant association with increased risk of TB (56.5% in patients vs. 46% in controls, P = 0.0357, OR = 1.525, %95 CI = 1.028-2.262). Also, the distribution of allele in patients was significantly lower frequency in TB patients compared to controls (43.5% vs. 54%, P = 0.0357, OR = 0.656, %95 CI = 0.442-0.973). However, the allelic and genotypic frequencies of , and polymorphisms were not significantly different between the patients and the controls. We couldn't detect any significant differences between haplotypes among TB patients and healthy controls.

Conclusions: Our findings demonstrated that genotype and allele may increase the susceptibility to pulmonary TB in the Lur population of Iran, although allele may decrease the susceptibility to pulmonary TB in this population. We suggest that it is necessary to further more studies with larger sample size and other ethnic population.