Significance of LncRNA CASC8 genetic polymorphisms on the tuberculosis susceptibility in Chinese population

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis remains an important disease threatening the security of public health, and no effective targets have been found for the immunological diagnosis or therapy of tuberculosis. The aim of this study was to explore the associations between lncRNA CASC8 genetic polymorphism and tuberculosis risk. METHOD: A total of 900 tuberculosis patients and 1534 healthy individuals in the Western Chinese Han population were recruited for our study. Candidate SNPs of CASC8 were initially filtered by importing the 1000 genomes database into Haploview, and subsequently genotyped using modified multiplex ligation detection reactions. RESULTS: The lncRNA CASC8 genetic variant rs7836840 was associated with an increased tuberculosis risk with a P‐value of .034, but .134 after Bonferroni correction. Using subtype analysis, the C allele in rs7836840 showed a significant association with tuberculosis susceptibility (OR = 1.196, 95% CI = 1.05‐1.362, P = .02739 after Bonferroni correction). Patients carrying genotype AG and GG of rs7825118 and rs9297758 exhibited lower Hb concentrations (P = .006) and neutrophil counts (P = .015), respectively, while genotype AG and AA in rs6981424 demonstrated higher levels of ALT (P = .005) and AST (P = .033) in a dominant model, which were consistent with a tendency toward increased TB risk. CONCLUSIONS: This study was the first to explore the association between lncRNA CASC8 polymorphisms and TB infection risk and clinical manifestations. Our results provide evidence that CASC8 may act as a biomarker for the progression of clinical tuberculosis.