Associação do polimorfismo do gene humano NRAMP1 na susceptibilidade/resistência para hanseníase em áreas endêmicas do estado do Pará

Abstract

Leprosy is a public health problem in the Pará state and a challeng for the Control Programs that aim strategies improvement to elimination of this disease between us. The agreement of the genetic and immunology mechanism to explain maintenc endemic disease can be one of the alternatives for problem resolution. The human gene for natural resistance associated macrophage protein – NRAMP1 is expressed in macrophages and seems to be involved with influence cellular immune responses to mycobacterium leprae infection. We evaluated the polymorphism association of this gene as reported by Buu et al (1995) with leprosy “per se” and clinical forms according to the anti-PGL-1 levels in the population studied. A total of 122 leprosy patients and 110 individual healthy coming from endemic municipalities in Para were genotyped for the polymorphism of NRAMP1. Association was found with leprosy “per se” (p=0.0087) and 3’ untranslated region with insertion/deletion of four base pairs was significantly associated with multibacillary (p=0.025) compared to contacts not cosanguineos. Heterozygotes and haplotypes with four base pairs deletion were more frequent among multibacillary than paucibacillary. The NRAMP1 gene haplotypes seem to have important influence on leprosy clinical presentation also revealed by Mycobacterium leprae anti-PGL-1 positively.