Variation in the IL1B, TNF and IL6 genes and individual susceptibility to prosthetic joint infection

We conducted a genetic-association study to determine whether PJI could be associated with functional cytokine gene polymorphisms (CGP) influencing on innate immunity response. A case–control design was utilized and previously published criteria for PJI were included to distinguish between cases and control subjects with/without TJA. Six single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located in the genes for interleukin-1beta (SNP: IL1B-511, +3962), tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-308, -238) and interleukin-6 (IL6-174, nt565) were genotyped in 303 Caucasian (Czech) patients with TJA (89 with PJI / 214 without PJI), and 168 unrelated healthy Czech individuals without TJA. The results showed that carriers of the less common IL1B？511*T allele were overrepresented in the group of TJA patients with PJI (69%) in comparison with those that did not develop PJI (51%, p？=？0.006, pcorr？=？0.037) and with healthy controls (55%, p？=？0.04, pcorr？=？N.S.). There was no significant difference in the distribution of the remaining five investigated CGPs and their haplotypes between groups.A functional variant of the gene encoding for IL-1beta was preliminarily nominated as a genetic factor contributing to the susceptibility to PJI. Our results should be independently replicated; studies on the functional relevance of IL1B gene variants in PJI are also needed.