Plasma TNF-α Elevation in Biologic Naive Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients Belonging to a Population with New Mutations in TLR4 and CYP51A1 genes without Association with Disease-Related Antibodies Levels.

In a system biology-based study, we previously reported that IL-6 and IL6R -specific m-RNA levels were elevated in leukocytes of patients with Rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Here, the association of toll-like receptor4 (TLR4) rs 141534085 and cytochrome P450 family 51 subfamily A member 1(CYP51A1) rs6 with tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF- α), rheumatoid factor (RF)- and Anti- cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP) antibody -positivity was investigated in almost the same subjects. Forty-six patients and 48 normal subjects were recruited in this study. The blood leucocytes TLR4 rs 141534085 and CYP51A1 rs6 -comprising DNA sequences were amplified by using tetra-primer amplification refractory mutation system polymerase chain reaction (T-ARMS-PCR) technique and the PCR products were checked by Sanger DNA sequencing method. ELISA method was used to determine plasma levels of TNF- α, anti-CCP antibody and RF positivity of plasma was evaluated through a latex agglutination test. The TNF- α level was significantly higher in the patient group than control subjects (p= 0.001). Moreover, we were not able to find any correlation between TNF-α levels and RF as well as anti-CCP antibodies when we used the K²/ Fisher's exact test and Pearson test respectively. Our DNA sequencing data revealed the following new mutations in TLR4 rs141534085 comprising regions: A>T in position 1050, T>A in position 1052, and C>A in position 1054; and for CYP51A1 rs6 encompassing region, the new mutations were; G>A in position 21680, the T nucleotide was inserted in position 21762 and the G nucleotide was inserted in position 21763, G>T in position 21764. The data of this study showed that both TLR4 rs141534085 and CYP51A1 rs6 related DNA regions should be considered as hotspot areas in RA pathogenicity. Moreover, these data indicated that, TNF- α did not alter the production of anti-CCP and RF pathogenic antibodies in patients with long-term RA.