Association of FCγRIIA (CD32) polymorphism with susceptibility to brucellosis

  background: brucellosis is the major bacterial zoonoses of global importance caused by brucella spps. fcγriia receptor plays a central role in phagocytosis of igg2-opsonized bacteria. fcγriia exhibits allelic polymorphisms with different capacities for binding igg2 and phagocytosis. cells expressing fc γ riia-h131, bind more efficiently to complexes of igg2 than those expressing the fc γ rii a -r131 variant. the purpose of this study was to evaluate the association of fcγriia polymorphisms with susceptibility to or severity of brucellosis.   materials and methods: in this study, we evaluated fcγriia polymorphisms (r/r131, r/h131, h/h131) in 67 patients with brucellosis and 67 age, sex and geographical matched healthy volunteers. fcγriia genotyping was performed by using a sequence-specific primer polymerase chain reaction (ssp-pcr).   results: the comparison of the fcγriia genotypes distribution in patients with brucellosis and controls showed a higher frequency in fcγriia-r/r131 homozygosity in patients than controls (47.8% vs. 28.4%). logistic regression analysis showed that there is a significant correlation between r/r131 genotype and brucellosis (or=2.3, 95%ci=1.3-4.2, p=0.04). although the frequency of the fcγriia-r/r131 was higher in patients with chronic brucellosis compared with acute brucellosis, we did not find any statistically significant differences (53.8% vs. 46.3%, p=0.65).   conclusion: the result of this study showed that the homozygous genotype of fcγriia-r/r131 in patients with brucellosis may be associated with susceptibility to brucellosis as a genetic risk factor.