Genetics of sepsis and pneumonia.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

The genetic risk for pneumonia, sepsis, and other serious infections is generally unrecognized or underestimated. Although the strongest evidence for a genetic risk comes from an adoptee study, most evidence for a genetic role in infection involves association studies, which compare the incidence of specific mutations in a population with infection to a control population. Recent association studies in pneumonia and sepsis will be reviewed.

RECENT FINDINGS

Most positive association studies examine genes for important inflammatory molecules such as tumor necrosis factor, the interleukin-1 family, interleukin-10, and angiotensin converting enzyme, as well as molecules important in antigen recognition, such as the mannose-binding lectin, CD-14, and toll-like receptors.

SUMMARY

A genetic component to risk of sepsis and resultant complications clearly exists. Confirmation of the findings in this review and associations with other genetic polymorphisms await large-scale population studies and further validation of the physiologic significance of the variant alleles.