High prevalence of protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor N22 gene functional variant R620W in systemic lupus erythematosus patients from Kuwait: implications for disease susceptibility.

BACKGROUND

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune inflammatory disease which involves the loss of self-tolerance with hyperactivation of autoreactive T- and B-cells. Protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor type 22 (PTPN22) encodes for lymphoid specific phosphatase (LYP) which is a key negative regulator of T lymphocyte activation. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between gene functional variant R620W and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) by comparing its prevalence in Kuwaiti SLE patients and controls.

METHODS

The study included 134 SLE patients and 214 controls from Kuwait. The genotypes of gene functional variant R620W were determined by PCR-RFLP and confirmed by DNA sequence analysis in both SLE patients and the controls.

RESULTS

A relatively high prevalence of the variant 620 W (T-allele) of the gene was detected in the SLE patients from Kuwait. 35.7% of the SLE patients had at least one variant allele (T-allele) compared to 15.9% in the controls. A statistically significant difference was detected in the frequency of variant genotypes, TT and CT between SLE patients and the controls ( < 0.0001). No association was detected between the gene variant and the Raynaud's phenomenon, renal involvement and severity of the SLE.

CONCLUSIONS

The frequency of gene functional variant R620W reported in this study is amongst the highest compared to other world populations. A high prevalence of this variant in SLE patients in comparison to the healthy controls suggests its significant contribution in conferring susceptibility to SLE together with other factors.