An association between LSIL and the high secretor phenotype of IL-1 beta

Objective. The aims of this study were to determine the frequency of a nucl eotide transition from C to T, which leads to increased transcription of in terleukin-1 beta (IL-1 beta) in patients with different grades of cervical lesions, and to determine whether a correlation exists between the genotype s and cervical lesions. Methods. One hundred forty-seven DNA samples from patients with different g rades of cervical lesions were compared with 100 healthy, age and sex-match ed bone marrow donors. TaqI restriction digest of PCR products was used to analyze the IL-1 beta +5887 C --> T mutation and the results were confirmed using induced heteroduplex analysis with an induced heteroduplex generator . Results. The Pearson chi(2) test (Yate's correction) was used for statistic al analysis. Patients with LSIL (n = 80) demonstrated a high frequency of a llele T, previously associated with high IL-1 beta secretor phenotype, comp ared to controls (P = 0.000012). A trend was also observed in patients with HSIL (n = 28, P = 0.039). Conclusions. We report for the first time a highly significant association between high secretor IL-1 beta phenotypes (i.e., IL-1 beta +5887 CT or TT genotypes) and LSIL. A less significant association exists with HSIL. The i ntrinsic ability to produce variable amounts of IL-1 beta during different clinical stages involving cervical lesions may be of immunological importan ce in their pathogenesis. (C) 1999 Academic Press.