BTNL2 gene G16071A SNP seems to be a predisposing factor for sarcoidosis except in Caucasian postmenopausal women with sarcoid uveitis in whom the GG genotype prevails.
The association of the HSP(+2437)-C allele with sarcoidosis and LS appeared to be independent of the presence of DRB1*03, although this HLA specificity was associated with LS manifestation.
The aim of this study was to further investigate associations between HLA-DRB1 alleles and the risk for extra-pulmonary manifestations (EPMs), i.e. engagement of the skin, superficial lymph nodes, eyes, nervous system, kidneys, hypercalcemia, parotid and salivary glands, heart, liver, spleen and bone marrow in Scandinavian sarcoidosis patients.
Butyrophilin-like 2 (BTNL2) is a butyrophilin family member with homology to the B7 costimulatory molecules, polymorphisms of which have been recently associated through genetic analyses to sporadic inclusion body myositis and sarcoidosis.
Genome-wide screening has conclusively identified linkage to chromosome 5q11and the development of sarcoidosis, and HLA genes and BTNL2 are susceptibility genes located in this region.
Initially, we studied the association of sarcoidosis with DQB1, and in the present study, we evaluated all amino acid variants of the HLA-DPB1, -DQB1, -DRB1, -DRB3, -DRB4 and -DRB5 genes to identify possible polymorphisms associated with the disease.
In addition, we found a highly significant correlation of HLA-DRB1*11 or -DRB1*15 alleles and/or the presence of M. tuberculosis DNA to a chronic disease course, whereas HLA-DRB1*03 or -DRB1*04 alleles combined with the absence of M. tuberculosis DNA were associated with an acute sarcoidosis (p = 0.009).
We analyzed associations between sarcoidosis clinical course and HLA class I/II alleles and susceptibility gene SNPs ANXA11 rs1049550 C/T and BTNL2rs2076530 G/A in a Portuguese population, investigating possible gene-gene interactions.
The data suggest that the LTAlpha and HLA-DRB1 genes themselves or a gene located nearby contributes to the susceptibility to sarcoidosis and that TNF-308*A, LTA+252*G and HLA-DRB1*03 alleles are associated (directly or via linkage with unknown causative locus) with LS as a specific manifestation of the disease.
However, this difference might be explained by a secondary association with HLA-DRB1*08 in the HLA-DRB1 gene, which is thought to be the gene primarily responsible for susceptibility to sarcoidosis.
BTNL2 may be a sarcoidosis-specific susceptibility loci, although only extensive examination of the whole HLA region in different inflammatory/AIDs will enable DR/DQ independent HLA effects to be determined.
The meta-analysis indicated that BTNL2G16071A gene polymorphism may as a likelihood factor contributed to granulomatous disease susceptibility, especially increasing the sarcoidosis susceptibility.
The previously reported BTNL2 SNP with the strongest sarcoidosis association, rs2076530, was also the SNP with the strongest association in our white population (P<.0001).
Among the patients with secondary EN, the patient subgroup with sarcoidosis exhibited a significantly increased frequency of HLA-DRB1* 13 compared with healthy controls.