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Abstract
Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFA) is a cytokine with potent inflammatory properties that may contribute to airway inflammation in asthma.
This study aimed to compare to relative frequency of TNF alleles TNFA-1031 TT & TC in a population of healthy subjects (n = 20) and children with asthma (n = 30) taking into account Atopic status, disease severity, and exposure to air pollution in their communities.
In this study, the relative frequency of TNFA – 1031 TT allele was 73.3% in children with asthma compared to 45% in healthy control subjects , (X2 = 9.94, p = 0.007). Furthermore, subdividing asthmatics into mild intermittent, mild persistent, moderate and severe asthma revealed that TNFA-1031 TT allele was more common in patients with persistent and moderate asthma, 40.9%, 31.8% respectively compared to patients with mild and severe asthma, 13.6% (p < 0.05). Atopic asthmatics were more likely to have TNFA-1031 TT allele, (odds ratio, OR = 1.22). Children with TNFA-1031 TT genotype may have high risk of asthma especially in those who are exposed to high levels of ozone and sulphur dioxide in ambient air, (OR = 50.6), (OR = 15.7) respectively.
To conclude that the TNFA-1031 TT allele confers a susceptibility to develop asthma which is further increased by exposure to ozone and sulphur dioxide.