Genetic association study of tumor necrosis factor-alpha with sepsis and septic shock in Thai pediatric patients

Objectives: to evaluate the association between the genetic polymorphism of the tumor necrosis factor-alpha (tnf-α) gene and the development of sepsis and septic shock in thai pediatric patients and to investigate the clinical impacts of tnf-α polymorphisms in this population. methods: to perform this genetic association study,a prospective analysis of pediatric patients (age < 18 years) with clinical sepsis/septic shock was conducted. all clinical data were collected by pediatric intensive care experts,and genetic analyses were performed at a central laboratory. a single nucleotide polymorphism (snp) located in the 5′-promoter region at position -308 was genotyped and the results were associated with clinical phenotypes. results: a total of 167 thai individuals were investigated,66 of which were pediatric patients with sepsis/septic shock and 101 were healthy controls. interestingly,we could not identify an association between sepsis and -308 (g/a) polymorphism,which have previously been demonstrated to be a major snp associated with sepsis in several caucasian populations,since there was no frequency difference between cases and controls. conclusions: in this report,the major tnf-α polymorphism (-308) was not associated with clinical sepsis/septic shock in thais. this information will be important for future analyses to identify the role of tnf-α as a genetic risk for the development of immunopathology underlying several diseases in asia. copyright © by sociedade brasileira de pediatria.