Association of IL6 Gene Polymorphisms and Neurological Disorders: Insights from Integrated Bioinformatics and Meta-Analysis.

Abstract

Interleukin 6 (IL6) is an inflammatory biomarker linked to central and peripheral nervous system diseases. This study combined bioinformatics and statistical meta-analysis to explore potential associations between IL6 gene variants (rs1800795, rs1800796, and rs1800797) and neurological disorders (NDs) and brain cancer. The meta-analysis was conducted on substantial case-control datasets and revealed a significant correlation between IL6 SNPs (rs1800795 and rs1800796) with overall NDs (p-value < 0.05). The disease-stratified analysis of rs1800795 revealed significant correlations with Schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's diseases (p-value < 0.05), while rs1800796 showed a substantial connection with Celiac disease (p-value < 0.05). The ethnicity-stratified analysis revealed noteworthy associations between rs1800795 in both Asians and Caucasians (p-value < 0.05), while rs1800796 showed significant associations across all ethnic groups analyzed (p-value < 0.05). Furthermore, integrated Bioinformatics analyses using GTEx and TCGA datasets highlighted IL6's involvement in NDs and its potential role in brain cancer. Specifically, IL6 SNPs (rs1800795 and rs1800797) showed a significant association with Glioma (p-value < 0.001). Copy number alterations and increased IL6 expressions were linked to cancer severity (p-value < 0.001) and hypoxia (p-value < 0.0001). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis demonstrated that elevated IL6 expression was strongly associated with decreased overall survival in brain cancer patients (p-value < 0.0001). In conclusion, this study identified notable correlations between IL6 SNPs and NDs, underscoring their potential as valuable prognostic biomarkers for various neurological conditions.