Research

Clinical relevance of the interleukin 10 promoter polymorphisms in Chinese Han patients with major trauma: genetic association studies

Ling Zeng^1* , Wei Gu^1* , Kehong Chen¹ , Dongpo Jiang² , Lianyang Zhang² , Dingyuan Du³ , Ping Hu³ , Qing Liu¹ , Suna Huang¹ and Jianxin Jiang¹

¹  State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burns and Combined Injury, Research Institute of Surgery, Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Changjiang Road, Yuzhong District, Chongqing, 400042, PR China

²  Department of Traumatic Surgery, Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Changjiang Road, Yuzhong District, Chongqing, 400042, PR China

³  Chongqing Emergency Medical Center, Jiankang Road, Yuzhong District, Chongqing, 400042, PR China

author email corresponding author email* Contributed equally

Critical Care 2009, 13:R188doi:10.1186/cc8182

Published:	26 November 2009

Abstract

Introduction

An excessive inflammatory response is thought to account for the pathogenesis of sepsis and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) after severe trauma. The interleukin-10 (IL-10) is a potent anti-inflammatory cytokine. The objectives of this prospective study were to investigate the distribution of IL-10 promoter polymorphisms in a cohort of 308 Chinese Han patients with major trauma, and to identify associations of IL-10 promoter polymorphisms with IL-10 production and incidence of sepsis and MODS.

Methods

A total of 308 patients with major trauma were included in this study. The genotypes of polymorphisms -1082, -819 and -592 were determined by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism. The IL-10 levels in the supernatants were determined with enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay.

Results

The -1082A and -592A alleles were significantly associated with lower lipopolysaccharide-induced IL-10 production in an allele-dose dependent fashion. There was no significant difference for the -819 polymorphism. Except for the -1082 polymorphism, the -819 and -592 polymorphisms were not significantly associated with sepsis morbidity rate and MOD scores.

Conclusions

Our results further confirm the functionality of the IL-10 promoter single nucleotide polymorphisms in relation to IL-10 production. They also suggest that individual difference in IL-10 production in trauma patients might be at least in part related to genetic variations in the IL-10 promoter region.