The results of our study demonstrated that the G allele of the Asp299Gly polymorphism of the TLR4 gene is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetic retinopathy in type 2 diabetes patients.
The Toll-like receptor (TLR)4 is the major sensor for bacterial lipopolysaccharide and its two common co-segregating polymorphisms, Asp299Gly and Thr399Ile, which occur at a frequency of between 6 and 10%, have been associated with infectious diseases, LPS hypo-responsiveness and cardiovascular disease.
Three tag single-nucleotide polymorphisms (rs2770150, rs10759931, and rs4986790) in TLR4 were studied on 222 unrelated patients with cardiovascular diseases and 190 healthy volunteers.
We evaluated the TLR4 D299G polymorphism among 695 individuals with incident myocardial infarction (MI) or stroke and among 695 age- and smoking-matched individuals who remained free of reported cardiovascular disease during follow-up within the Physicians' Health Study.