Research article

CD209 in inflammatory bowel disease: a case-control study in the Spanish population

Concepción Núñez¹ , Javier Oliver² , Juan Luis Mendoza³ , María Gómez-García⁴ , Carlos Taxonera³ , Luis M Gómez² , Miguel A López-Nevot⁵ , Emilio G de la Concha¹ , Elena Urcelay¹ , Alfonso Martínez¹ and Javier Martín²

¹Servicio de Inmunología Clínica, Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid, Spain

²Instituto de Parasitología y Biomedicina, CSIC, Granada, Spain

³Unidad de Enfermedad Inflamatoria Intestinal, Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid, Spain

⁴Unidad de Enfermedad Inflamatoria Intestinal, Hospital Virgen de las Nieves, Granada, Spain

⁵Servicio de Inmunología, Hospital Virgen de las Nieves, Granada, Spain

author email corresponding author email

BMC Medical Genetics 2007, 8:75doi:10.1186/1471-2350-8-75

Published:	10 December 2007

Abstract

Background

The etiology of Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and Crohn's Disease (CD), considered together as Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD), involves environmental and genetic factors. Although some genes are already known, the genetics underlying these diseases is complex and new candidates are continuously emerging. The CD209 gene is located in a region linked previously to IBD and a CD209 functional polymorphism (rs4804803) has been associated to other inflammatory conditions. Our aim was to study the potential involvement of this CD209 variant in IBD susceptibility.

Methods

We performed a case-control study with 515 CD patients, 497 UC patients and 731 healthy controls, all of them white Spaniards. Samples were typed for the CD209 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs4804803 by TaqMan technology. Frequency comparisons were performed using χ² tests.

Results

No association between CD209 and UC or CD was observed initially. However, stratification of UC patients by HLA-DR3 status, a strong protective allele, showed that carriage of the CD209_G allele could increase susceptibility in the subgroup of HLA-DR3-positive individuals (p = 0.03 OR = 1.77 95% CI 1.04–3.02, vs. controls).

Conclusion

A functional variant in the CD209 gene, rs4804803, does not seem to be influencing Crohn's disease susceptibility. However, it could be involved in the etiology or pathology of Ulcerative Colitis in HLA-DR3-positive individuals but further studies are necessary.