Rheumatoid Arthritis and Cytokine Gene Polymorphism

Abstract

Rheumatoid Arthritis is a chronic, painful, systemic, inflammatory, autoimmune disease with unknown etiology and it is characterized by the proliferation of synovial cells, dysfunction of joints. According to the common view accepted today, the disease of RA begins with the antigenic stimulation of the environmental factors that we do not yet know exactly in genetically predisposed individuals and is considered to be chronic with complex interactions in the immune system. Cytokine polymorphisms have been linked to many inflammatory, infectious and autoimmune diseases and it is now known that polymorphisms in regulatory regions of the cytokine genes affect their secretion. Inheritance of the polymorphisms is influenced by the ethnicity and ethnic differences in patterns of cytokine gene polymorphisms have been associated with predisposition to various diseases in different populations. Here we discus some cytokine gene polymorphism and Rheumatoid arthritis.