Association of polymorphisms of the transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP2) gene with pulmonary tuberculosis in an elderly Japanese population.

The transporter associated with antigen processing 2 (TAP2) gene is involved in the immunological response to tuberculosis (TB) infection. Variations in the TAP2 gene have been associated with TB infection in small population studies in India, Columbia, and Korea. We investigated the association of TAP2 polymorphisms with TB susceptibility in an elderly Japanese population. We analyzed samples from consecutive autopsy cases (n = 1850) registered in the Japanese Geriatric SNP Research database. TB was diagnosed pathologically by TB granuloma on autopsy samples. There were 289 cases and 1529 controls. Twenty-four single nucleotide variations (SNVs), including four missense variations in the TAP2 region, were genotyped using the Illumina Infinium Human Exome BeadChip array. Of the 24 SNVs in the TAP2 gene, rs4148871, rs4148876 (R651C), and rs2857103 showed statistically significant associations with TB susceptibility, and rs4148871 and rs2857103 also showed significant genotypic associations in a dominant allele model adjusted for age, sex, and smoking. Haplotype analysis showed that TAP2 allele *0103 conferred an increased TB risk (OR = 1.48, p = 0.0008), while the TAP2 *0201 allele was protective against TB (OR = 0.73, p = 0.0007). Our results suggest that TAP2 polymorphisms influence TB susceptibility in a Japanese population.