Association of rs12826786 and rs1899663, Long Non-coding RNA HOTAIR Polymorphic Variants, with Susceptibility to Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease.

Abstract

The most prevalent inflammatory arthropathy in the world is rheumatoid arthritis (RA). An essential part of the pathogenesis of RA involves autoimmune responses. Variants in lncRNAs may have an impact on the course and/or result of a disease and may have diagnostic or prognostic significance. Our study looked into the connection of rs12826786 and rs1899663 polymorphisms of HOX antisense RNA (HOTAIR) transcript with genetic susceptibility to RA. The study involved 300 participants in total, 150 of them were RA patients and the remaining 150 were healthy controls. Using tetra primer ARMS-PCR, the HOTAIR polymorphisms rs12826786 and rs1899663 were detected. More observations of the T allele of rs1899663 and the C allele of rs12826786 were made in the study group compared to the control group. The HOTAIR rs12826786 variant displayed a significant association with susceptibility to RA in both recessive (OR = 2.45, 95% CI = 1.47-4.09, P = 0.0004) and over-dominant (OR = 0.42, 95% CI = 0.26-0.68, P = 0.0003) models. In addition, the HOTAIR rs1899663 was shown to be linked to RA susceptibility in the co-dominant model (OR = 0.32, 95% CI = 0.17-0.61, P = 0.0004 for GG genotype), dominant model (OR = 0.48, 95% CI = 0.29-0.81, P = 0.005), and recessive model (OR = 0.43, 95% CI = 0.25-0.74, P = 0.001). The CT haplotype is linked to a greater risk of RA, whereas the CG haplotype confers protection against RA. We reported for the first time, HOTAIR rs12826786 and rs1899663 variants are associated with susceptibility to developing RA among the Iranian population. In addition, the CT and CG haplotypes were associated with the risk of RA. Further functional studies are needed to elucidate the role of these variations on HOTAIR expression.