Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Nov 9;14(1):218.
doi: 10.1186/s12985-017-0884-4.

Association of IFITM3 rs12252 polymorphisms, BMI, diabetes, and hypercholesterolemia with mild flu in an Iranian population

Parvaneh Mehrbod  1 , Sana Eybpoosh  2 , Fatemeh Fotouhi  1 , Hadiseh Shokouhi Targhi  1 , Vahideh Mazaheri  1 , Behrokh Farahmand  3
Affiliations

Association of IFITM3 rs12252 polymorphisms, BMI, diabetes, and hypercholesterolemia with mild flu in an Iranian population

Parvaneh Mehrbod et al. Virol J. .

Abstract

Background: IFITM3 has been suggested to be associated with infection in some ethnic groups. Diabetes and hypercholesterolemia are also important clinical conditions that can predispose individuals to infection. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of rs12252 C polymorphism, BMI, diabetes, and hypercholesterolemia with mild flu in an Iranian population.

Methods: We conducted a case-control study, including 79 mild flu and 125 flu-negative individuals attending primary care centers of three provinces of Iran (i.e, Markazi, Semnan, and Zanjan). Pharyngeal swab specimens were collected from all participants, and were subjected to RNA and DNA extractions for Real-time PCR and PCR tests. All PCR products were then sequenced to find T/C polymorphisms in the rs12252 region. Data on demographic, anthropometric, and clinical variables were collected from participants' medical records available in the primary care centers. The data was analyzed using DNASIS (v. 2.5) and Stata (v.11) software.

Results: All participants were of Fars ethnic background. The allele frequency for rs12252-C was found to be 9.49% among cases and 2.40% among controls. Carriers of the rs12252 C allele (CT + CC genotypes) showed 5.92 folds increase in the risk of mild flu comparing to the T allele homozygotes (P value: 0.007). We also found a significant positive association between rs12252 C allele heterozygote and mild flu (OR: 7.62, P value: 0.008), but not in C allele homozygote group (OR: 2.71, P value: 0.406). Similarly, we did not find a significant association between mild flu and BMI (OR: 1.06, P value: 0.087), diabetes (OR: 0.61, P value: 0.392), and hypercholesterolemia (OR: 0.50, P value: 0.393) in multivariable logistic regression.

Conclusions: This is the first study evaluating the association between rs12252 polymorphisms, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and BMI and susceptibility to mild flu in an Iranian population. Our results suggest a significant positive association between mild flu and rs12252 C allele heterozygous and carriage. Future replication of the strong association observed here between rs12252 C allele carriage and mild flu might candidate this polymorphism as a genetic marker for early screening of susceptibility to mild flu. Lack of significant association between C allele homozygous and mild flu, observed in this study, might be the result of small sample size in this group.

Trial registration: IR.PII.REC.1395.3.

Keywords: Body mass index; Diabetes; Human influenza; Hypercholesterolemia; IFITM3 protein; Iran; Polymorphism.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval

Clinical investigation was conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Pasteur Institute of IRAN. This research was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Pasteur Institute of IRAN (Protocol Number IR.PII.REC.1395.3).

Consent for publication

Written informed consent was obtained from the patients or the guardians of the patients participated in this research.

Competing interests

Authors (Parvaneh Mehrbod, Sana Eybpoosh, Fatemeh Fotouhi, Hadis Shokouhi, Vahideh Mazaheri, Behrokh Farahmand) declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Amini-Bavil-Olyaee S, Choi YJ, Lee JH, Shi M, Huang IC, Farzan M, Jung JU. The antiviral effector IFITM3 disrupts intracellular cholesterol homeostasis to block viral entry. Cell Host Microbe. 2013;13:452–464. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2013.03.006. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bailey CC, Huang IC, Kam C, Farzan M. IFITM3 limits the severity of acute influenza in mice. PLoS Pathog. 2012;8:e1002909. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1002909. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brass AL, Huang IC, Benita Y, John SP, Krishnan MN, Feeley EM, Ryan B, Weyer JL, van der Weyden L, Fikrig E, et al. IFITM proteins mediate the innate immune response to influenza a H1N1 virus, West Nile virus and dengue virus. Cell. 2009;139:1243–1254. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.12.017. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cardon LR, Palmer LJ. Population stratification and spurious allelic association. Lancet. 2003;361:598–604. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(03)12520-2. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Chutiwitoonchai N, Hiyoshi M, Hiyoshi-Yoshidomi Y, Hashimoto M, Tokunaga K, Suzu S. Characteristics of IFITM, the newly identified IFN-inducible anti-HIV-1 family proteins. Microbes Infect. 2013;15:280–290. doi: 10.1016/j.micinf.2012.12.003. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms