Association of Pro/Anti-inflammatory Cytokine Gene Polymorphisms with Benign Prostate Hyperplasia Risk

Benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) is a common condition in aged men and result from prolong chronic inflammation in prostate gland. Cytokines are important molecules responsible for inflammation. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in promoter region of cytokine genes have been shown to alter the level of cytokines. Hence we evaluated the association of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokine SNPs in a North Indian cohort of BPH patients. We observed that IL-1B - 511 CT + TT genotypes conferred protective effect for susceptibility to BPH (OR 0.39, P 0.001). Our results also demonstrated that TNF-A -1031 C allele to be associated with risk for BPH (OR 1.89, P < 0.0001). Moreover, we also observed twofold risk for IL-10 - 1082 cytokine gene polymorphism (OR 1.96, P 0.048). No association was observed with risk of BPH for IFN-G + 874, IL-1 RN VNTR, IL-6 - 174, IL-10 - 819 and TGF-B + 28. Our findings of IL-1B - 511, TNF-A -1031 and IL-10 - 1082 suggested that these variants play important role in susceptibility to BPH. Future studies in large cohort of different ethnicity BPH groups are warranted to establish definite associations with other cytokine gene polymorphisms as well.