Granulomatous reaction to intradermal injection of lepromin (Mitsuda reaction) is linked to the human NRAMP1 gene in Vietnamese leprosy sibships.

The Mitsuda test, which measures the specific immune response against intradermally injected lepromin, has a high prognostic value for susceptibility or resistance to the lepromatous form of leprosy. A sib-pair linkage analysis between the Mitsuda response and the NRAMP1 gene was done among 20 nuclear families with leprosy (totaling 118 sibs) from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. All family subjects were genotyped for several intragenic and flanking NRAMP1 markers, leading to the definition of a fully informative NRAMP1 haplotype. Significant linkage was observed between NRAMP1 and Mitsuda reaction when considered either as a quantitative (P<.002) or as a categorical (P=.001) trait. Separate analyses among healthy and affected sibs showed evidence for linkage in both subsamples, indicating that linkage between the Mitsuda reaction and NRAMP1 is independent of leprosy status. These results support the view that NRAMP1 plays a regulatory role for the development of acquired antimycobacterial immune responses as determined by in vivo Mitsuda test reaction.