IL-4 and IL-6 gene polymorphisms in chronic renal failure patients

Chronic kidney disease (CKD), defined as the irreversible loss of renal function, that occurs due to the chronic, renal or systemic diseases, is a major public health problem which has become epidemic in Turkey and the world. Various complications, particularly cardiovascular diseases (CVD), which increase mortality are observed in CKD patients, who are undergoing dialysis treatment. In the past studies, it has been proposed that a set of environmental and genetic factors trigger the formation of progressive kidney damage and complications. One of these factors is inflammation, which develops as a result of a number of mechanisms in which interleukin 4 (IL-4) and interleukin 6 (IL-6) cytokines take part. Although previous researches have shown that cardiovascular complications are related to serum levels of IL-4 and IL-6, contradictory results have been deduced in different populations about the relationship of polymorphisms in these cytokine genes with the chronic or systemic disease.The purpose of this study is to describe the relation of IL-4 intron 3 and IL-6 -174 G/C gene polymorphisms with chronic renal failure. In addition, it has been searched if there is a connection of the genotypes that were analyzed with the clinical and laboratory findings of the disease.For this purpose, determining the distribution of genotypes and alleles of the genes IL-4 intron 3 and IL-6-174 G/C of 137 chronic renal failure patients and 106 healthy control subjects, the relation of these distributions with a number of complete blood count and biochemical parameters were investigated. Identified gene alleles IL-4 intron 3 or genotypes have been found not to have a relation with chronic renal failure or clinical outcome. A statistically meaningful difference between the genotype distributions of IL-6 -174 G/C is detected, and this result is supported with comparisons made through clinical and laboratory findings.We hope that this study will help to elucidate the molecular-level processes of the mortality factors of chronic renal failure, and also help to develop novel techniques of diagnosis and treatment.Keywords : Chronic renal failure, polymorphism, interleukin-4, interleukin-6