ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Minerva Biotecnologica 2016 December;28(4):224-7

Copyright © 2016 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Cytomegalovirus reactivation and R753Q TLR2 polymorphism

Massimiliano BERGALLO ¹, Stefano GAMBARINO ¹, Simone FLORIDDIA ², Diego BRASOLIN ¹, Gabriele GOLÈ ¹, Paola MONTANARI ¹, Ilaria GALLIANO ¹, Paolo RAVANINI ²

¹ Department of Public Health and Pediatric Sciences, University of Turin, Medical School, Turin, Italy; ² Laboratory of Molecular Virology, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Maggiore della Carità, Novara, Italy

BACKGROUND: Microorganisms’ infection is controlled by immune system thanks to many specialized cells. The Toll like receptor’s (TLRs) family is expressed by different cells of the immune system and recognizes well defined target regions belonging to several pathogens inducing the immune response through the proinflammatory cytokines and antimicrobial peptides release. Recent findings showed that the single nucleotide polymorphisms R753Q in TLR2 gene seems to alter the receptor’s activity and cause a predisposition to human Cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in liver transplanted patients.
METHODS: In this work 75 kidney transplanted patients were monitored for CMV reactivation after transplantation, and evaluated the prevalence of R753Q TLR2 polymorphism in this group.
RESULTS: Three out of seventy five patients were found heterozygous for the polymorphism, while the remaining possesses the wild type allele.
CONCLUSIONS: No statistical significant correlation has been found out due to the low prevalence of the polymorphism in the population analyzed.