Chest
Volume 118, Issue 4, October 2000, Pages 971-975
Journal home page for Chest

Clinical Investigations
COPD
A Polymorphism in the Tumor Necrosis Factor-α Gene Promoter Region May Predispose to a Poor Prognosis in COPD

https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.118.4.971Get rights and content

Study objectives:

To determine whether the adenine(A)-guanine (G) substitution polymorphism at position - 308 on thetumor necrosis factor-α gene confers susceptibility to COPD or to thedevelopment of a more severe form of disease.

Design:

A cross-sectional study was undertaken to compare the frequency of the A allele in a group of 106 patients with COPD with that in a controlpopulation (n = 99). Patients were followed up prospectively for aperiod of 2 years.

Participants and setting:

Participants included 106 COPD patients recruited from a respiratoryoutpatient clinic and 99 control subjects recruited from patientsadmitted for cardiac catheterization.

Measurements andresults:

DNA was extracted from venous blood, and each subjectwas genotyped for the polymorphism by polymerase chain reactionamplification and restriction digestion using Nco1. There was noincreased frequency of the A allele in patients compared to controlsubjects. AA homozygous patients had less reversible airflowobstruction (p < 0.05) and a significantly greater mortality (bothall-cause and respiratory deaths) on follow-up (p < 0.001), despitea shorter cigarette smoking history.

Conclusions:

Thisstudy suggests that homozygosity for this A allele predisposes to moresevere airflow obstruction and a worse prognosis in COPD.

Section snippets

Materials and Methods

One hundred six volunteers with stable COPD and 99 controlsubjects were recruited. The study was approved by St Vincent'sHospital Ethics Committee, and all subjects gave informed consent. Patients with COPD had stable disease and were recruited from therespiratory outpatient clinic at St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin. Inclusion criteria for patients with COPD were as follows: stabledisease, FEV1 < 70% predicted, FEV1/FVC < 70%, smoking history > 20pack-years, and improvement in FEV1

Results

Patient and control characteristics are shown in Table 1. There was no statistical difference in age or smoking history betweengroups. There was no difference in the frequency of the GG and GAgenotypes in the COPD population compared with control subjects (Table 2). Six patients in the COPD and three patients in the control group wereAA homozygous, but this was not statistically significant. The genotypefrequencies in patient and control groups did not deviate fromHardy-Weinberg equilibrium.

To

Discussion

This study demonstrates that there is no difference in frequencyof the A and G alleles in patients with COPD compared to controlsubjects. The patients with AA homozygosity, however, had similardegree of airways obstruction despite a lower total cigarette smokinghistory. In addition, after almost 2 years of prospective follow-up, the patients with AA homozygosity had a significantly greater mortalitythan the heterozygote or GG homozygous groups.

The major etiologic factor for the development of

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors also thank Drs. W. T. McNicholas, B. Maurer, and P. Quigley for permission to recruit patients under theircare.

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Supported by EU Biomed 2 programme, grant No. BMH4-CT96–0152, andIrish Thoracic Society Travelling Fellowship 1998.

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