Association of Common Variants of and Genes with CLL Risk and Clinical Picture, as Well as Expression of Their Products-APRIL and TACI Molecules.

Interactions between APRIL (TNFSF13) and its receptor TACI (TNFRSF13B) are implicated in providing survival benefits for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) cells. Here we explored the relationship between and SNPs and expression of APRIL and TACI molecules and performed extended case-control study to evaluate earlier observations. Expression of APRIL and TACI was detected by FACS for 72 and 145 patients, respectively, and soluble APRIL was measured by ELISA in plasma of 122 patients. Genotypes were determined in 439 CLL patients and 477 control subjects with TaqMan Assays or restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). The rs4968210GG genotype of was associated with a lower percentage of CD19APRIL cells in CLL patients when compared to (AA + GA) genotypes (-value = 0.027). Homozygosity at rs11078355 was associated with higher CD19 TACI cell percentage in CLL patients (-value = 0.036). The analysis of extended groups of patients and healthy controls confirmed the association of rs3803800AA genotype with a higher CLL risk (OR = 2.13; CI95% = 1.21; 3.75; -value = 0.007), while the possession of rs4985726G allele (CG + GG) genotype was associated with lower risk of CLL (OR = 0.69; CI95% = 0.51; 0.95; -value = 0.02). Genetic variants of and may have an impact on APRIL and TACI expression and may be considered as possible CLL risk factors.