The relationship between spontan bacterial peritonitis and NOD2 gene mutation and bacterial translocation in cirrhotic patients

Bacteral translocation (BT) plays an important role at development of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP). At recent studies, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis has been found to be related to nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain containing 2 (NOD2) gene allele and frequency of BT. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between spontaneous bacterial peritonitis and BT and NOD2 variant in cirrhotic patients with ascites. Total of 82 cirrhotic patients with SBP regardless of etiology and total of 89 patients without SBP were included to the study. In our study, we examined 3 NOD2 gene alleles (p.R702W, p.G908R, c.3020insC) which were thought to be related to BT. Bacterial DNA in ascitic fluid and serum interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNF-R) and lipopolysaccharide bindig protein (LPB) levels were examined at all patients for detect BT. Existence of bacterial DNA in ascitic fluid in patients with SBP was significantly different than those without SBP. There was no significant difference for NOD2 gene variant frequency in patients with or without SBP. In patients with culture-positive SBP, NOD2 gene variant frequency was significantly different than those of culture-negative patients. Frequency of bacterial DNA in ascitic fluid of patients with NOD2 gene variant were statistically different than those without NOD2 gene variant. Our findings suggest that there was a significant relationship between ascites culture and bacterial DNA positivity and NOD2 gene mutation. The key words: NOD2, bacterial translocation, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis