To investigate the frequency of Fc Gamma Receptor IIIA V/158/F gene polymorphism and comparison of clinical and laboratory findings in rheumatoid arthritis (RA)

Introduction: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic multisystemic disease with unknown etiology, mainly involving the peripheral joints progressively. As a link between humoral and cellular immune responses, receptors recognizing the Fc region of immunoglobulin G (FcR) have attracted much interest concerning the aetiology and pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. This region displays extensive genetic variation, which has been associated with susceptibility to various chronic inflammatory disorders including rheumatoid arthritis. This study aimed to investigate the frequency of Fc?RIIIA V158F gene polymorphism and comparison of clinical and laboratory findings in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).Materyal and Methods: 105 Patients admitted to the Cukurova University Faculty of Medicene, Rheumatology BD outpatient clinic between April 2010-June 2011 who had been diagnosed with RA according to American Rheumatism Association diagnostic criteria and 110 healthy controls were included in this study. Patients and controls who has diabetes, thyroid disorders, previous or current cardiac disease, malignancy, neurological diseases and chronic inflammatory diseases and those with one or more were excluded from the study. In patients with RA disease-related symptoms, the presence of systemic disease, medication use, disease duration and family history were recorded. General physical examination and rheumatologic examination was performed in all cases and routine laboratory tests and CRP, RF, ESH, ANA, anti-DNA levels were asked. Patient groups were divided into stages using the ARA functional classification. Fc?RIIIA V158F gene polymorphism of the patients were investigated in blood samples taken by real-time PCR method.Results: There was no significant differences in distributions of the polymorphism of the Fc RIIIA between patients and controls (p=0.106). There was no significant difference between the distributions of age at diagnosis of the patients with the gene polymorphism (p=0.919). Distribution of patients according to gender, there was also no significant difference in gene polymorphism (p=0.552). No association was found between gene polymorphism with the clinical signs of disease that such as and eye involvement and the presence of rheumatoid nodules. There was also no significant association between the gene polymorphism with the results of RF and ANA (p=0.625, p=0.716). There was no significant difference between the gene polymorphism with the results of anti-CCP (p=0.136).Conclusion: In our study, no significant relationship was found between Fc?RIIIA V158F gene polymorphism and the pathogenesis of RA.Keywords: Rheumatoid arthritis, Fc?RIIIA V158F gene polymorphism