Background: A number of observational studies have been conducted to investigate the association of IL-10 gene polymorphisms with tuberculosis (TB) susceptibility. However, the results of different studies were inconsistent. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between IL-10 -1082G/A, -819T/C, and -592A/C polymorphisms and TB risk by meta-analysis.
Methods: A literature search was conducted among six English databases (PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Science Direct, SpringerLink and EBSCO) and two Chinese databases (Wanfang and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure databases) to identify studies involving association between IL-10 -1082G/A, -819T/C, and -592A/C polymorphisms and TB susceptibility before May. 2013. Statistical analysis was performed using Revman 5.0 and Stata 12.0.
Results: A total of 31 studies with 6,559 cases and 7,768 controls were included in this meta-analysis. The results showed that three polymorphisms (-1082G/A, -819T/C, and -592A/C) in the IL-10 gene were not associated with the risk of TB in general population. In the subgroup analysis by ethnicity, IL-10 -1082G/A polymorphism was associated with TB risk in Europeans (AA+AG vs. GG: OR = 0.57, 95% CI = 0. 0.37-0.89, P = 0.01) and Americans (AA+AG vs. GG: OR = 0.39, 95% CI = 0.27-0.57, P<0.01), and IL-10 -819T/C (C allele vs. T allele: OR = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.72-0.96, P = 0.01) and -592A/C (CC+AC vs. AA: OR = 0.65, 95% CI = 0.49-0.85, P = 0.002) polymorphisms were significantly associated with TB risk in Asians.
Conclusion: This meta-analysis provides strong evidence that IL-10-1082G/A polymorphism was associated with TB risk in Europeans and Americans, and IL-10 -819T/C and -592A/C polymorphisms could be risk factors for TB in Asians. Additional well designed large studies were required for the validation of our results.