Volume 139, Issue 2 pp. 225-229

Ultraviolet B induced suppression of induction of contact sensitivity in human skin is not associated with tumour necrosis factor-alpha-308 or interleukin-10 genetic polymorphisms

Allen

Allen

St John's Institute of Dermatology, St Thomas' Hospital, London, SE1 7EH, U.K.,

Search for more papers by this author
Skov

Skov

Department of Dermatology, Gentofte Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Denmark,

Search for more papers by this author
Barber

Barber

Departments of Genetics and Medicine and Therapeutics, University of Leicester, Leicester, U.K.,

Search for more papers by this author
Trembath

Trembath

Departments of Genetics and Medicine and Therapeutics, University of Leicester, Leicester, U.K.,

Search for more papers by this author
Simon

Simon

Department of Dermatology, University of Freiburg, Germany

Search for more papers by this author
Baadsgaard

Baadsgaard

Department of Dermatology, Gentofte Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Denmark,

Search for more papers by this author
Barker

Barker

St John's Institute of Dermatology, St Thomas' Hospital, London, SE1 7EH, U.K.,

Search for more papers by this author
First published: 04 January 2002
Citations: 11
Barker St John's Institute of Dermatology, St Thomas' Hospital, London, SE1 7EH, U.K.

Abstract

Low doses of ultraviolet B (UVB) can induce localized immunosuppression in skin. This effect may be important in the induction of skin cancers and is thought to be mediated by tumour necrosis factor (TNF) α and interleukin (IL) 10 in conjunction with other factors. In humans a transition polymorphism in the TNF-α gene may affect TNF-α secretion and the promoter region of the IL-10 gene contains a CA repeat polymorphism which may affect gene function. We have therefore investigated the association of these polymorphisms with UVB-induced immunosuppression in humans. Volunteers (n = 42) were irradiated with UVB then sensitized on irradiated skin with diphenylcyclopropanone (DPCP) and subsequently antigen challenged with DPCP. DNA was extracted from blood samples and volunteers genotyped for the TNF-α polymorphism by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction digestion. The CA repeat polymorphism was amplified by PCR and sized by gel electrophoresis. Twenty-four volunteers were susceptible to UVB-induced immunosuppression and 18 were resistant. The association of allele frequencies and phenotype was statistically tested using a χ2-test. For both the TNF-α and IL-10 polymorphisms, there was no statistically significant association between allele types and response to UVB. These results indicate that variation in the immune response to UVB in humans is not associated with the TNF-α-308 transition or IL-10 CA repeat polymorphisms, although other as yet undetected DNA sequence variants of these genes may be involved.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.