LAUSR

Abstract Background and objective There is ongoing debate as to whether tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α)-308 is associated with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). The aim of the present study was to determine whether TNF-α-308 is involved into genetic susceptibility, clinical features and therapeutic response of AS in Han Chinese. Methods Two hundred and sixty AS patients with 260 ethnically matched healthy blood donors were enrolled into the present study. TNF-α-308 promoter polymorphism was identified using polymerase chain reaction amplification with restriction fragment length polymorphism assay. Results Population genetic analysis showed that the prevalence of allele A and G/A genotype was equally infrequent in both AS patients (3.85% and 7.69%) and healthy subjects (4.23% and 8.46%). Compared with the carriers of G/G genotype, remarkably elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate and serum C-reactive protein were observed in AS patients with G/A variant (87.06 ± 49.40 vs. 55.53 ± 42.99 mm/h, p = 0.0126; 54.95 ± 27.77 vs. 34.36 ± 36.13 mg/dl, p = 0.0116, respectively), and they always presented with inflammatory spinal pain (70.00% vs. 43.33%, p = 0.0214) and suffered relatively mild sacroiliitis (65.00% vs. 41.67%, p = 0.0431). The allele G and G/G genotype were more frequent in good responders to anti-TNF-α treatment (96.55% vs. 73.53%, p = 0.0032; 93.10% vs. 47.06%, p = 0.0015), whereas there was no obvious superiority of them in predicting therapeutic response of conventional medications for AS. Conclusions Our data suggest that TNF-α-308 polymorphism may influence the clinical features rather than susceptibility to AS in our Han Chinese.