Author(s): Benet Bosco Dhas D, Hiasindh Ashmi A, Vishnu Bhat B, Subash Chandra Parija
Genetic variants and their association with sepsis are the futuristic consideration for the development of potential prognostic markers. Polymorphisms in Toll-interleukin-1 receptor (TIRAP) and Myeloid differentiation primary response gene 88 (MyD88) were found to be significantly associated with infectious diseases like tuberculosis and malaria. In this study, we determined the association of these pathogenic variants in neonatal sepsis. We enrolled 110 newborns with sepsis as cases and 117 newborns without sepsis as controls from Dravidian population from Tamilnadu, India. The genotypic and allelic frequencies of the variants in TIRAP (rs8177374) and MyD88 (rs6853) were studied TaqMan Genotyping assay kits. The plasma levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) were estimated using commercially available ELISA kits. The genotypic and allelic frequencies of both the variants studied were found to be not associated with susceptibility to neonatal sepsis. However, the genotype AA was significantly associated with mechanical ventilation and high plasma CRP levels (P < 0.05) among the population studied. This is probably the first study to determine the genetic associations of neonatal sepsis among Indian population. No significant association of the pathogenic genetic variants in TIRAP and MyD88 were found in our study.