Objective: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune and chronic inflammatory disease of unknown etiology. Killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors are expressed on the surface of natural killer cells and CD28null T-cells, both present in synovial membrane of RA. Therefore we evaluated the associations of KIR genes with RA.Methods: 16 KIR genes were genotyped in 100 healthy subjects (HS) and 100 RA patients from Western Mexico using PCR-SSP. Differences in KIR genotypes and gene frequencies were assessed using the X² test.Results: Gene frequency of KIR2DL3 was lower in RA than in HS (p = 0.0019), whereas KIR2DL2 and KIR2DS2 were higher in RA than HS (p = 0.0004 and p = 0.0487, respectively). In addition were identified 38 genotypes (from G1-G38) in both studied groups, and the genotype frequencies of G1, G6 and G14 showed significant differences (p = 0.0001, p = 0.0208 and p = 0.0300, respectively).Conclusions: The presence of KIR2DL2, KIR2DS2 and absence of KIR2DL3 are associated with RA. Moreover, two genotypes BX are associated with RA. These results suggest that KIRs can be involved in RA susceptibility.

中文翻译：

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杀伤细胞免疫球蛋白样受体基因与类风湿性关节炎的关联。

目的：类风湿性关节炎（RA）是一种病因不明的自身免疫性慢性炎症性疾病。杀伤细胞免疫球蛋白样受体在自然杀伤细胞和 CD28无效T 细胞的表面表达，两者都存在于 RA 的滑膜中。因此，我们评估了KIR基因与 RA的关联。方法：使用 PCR-SSP 对来自西墨西哥的 100 名健康受试者 (HS) 和 100 名 RA 患者的16 个KIR基因进行基因分型。在差异KIR基因型和基因频率使用所评估的X ²检验。结果：RA中KIR2DL3的基因频率低于HS（p= 0.0019），而KIR2DL2和KIR2DS2在 RA 中高于 HS（分别为p = 0.0004 和p = 0.0487）。另外在两个研究组中鉴定出38个基因型（从G1-G38），G1、G6和G14的基因型频率显示出显着差异（分别为p = 0.0001、p = 0.0208和p = 0.0300）。结论：KIR2DL2、KIR2DS2和KIR2DL3 的存在与 RA 相关。此外，两种基因型 BX 与 RA 相关。这些结果表明KIR可能与 RA 易感性有关。