Meta-Analysis of Human Toll-Like Receptor-1 Polymorphisms rs4833095 and rs5743618 and Leprosy Development

Abstract

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease, with genetics fundamentally responsible for its outcome. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in immune response genes have been shown to participate in the disease. Human Toll-like receptor 1 (TLR1) in leprosy infection recognizes cell wall components and activates immunological responses, polymorphisms in TLR1 genes may control disease progression. Studies investigating SNPs in TLR1 have not reached a consensus. We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the participation of TLR1 SNPs in leprosy infection. For that purpose, we searched online databases PubMed, LILACS, Scopus, and ScienceDirect for original articles investigating TLR1 polymorphisms and leprosy. Of 382 studies found, eight were included, and only two SNPs had sufficient studies to carry out the analysis: rs4833095 and rs5743618. No association was found for either of the SNPs evaluated. Only rs4833095 had enough studies to perform a subgroup analysis which also did not reach statistical significance. In conclusion, we demonstrated that the SNPs rs4833095 and rs5743618 were not associated with leprosy in this meta-analysis. We address the need for more studies with both SNPs once TLR1 is an essential receptor in M. leprae infection.