Association of Toll-like Receptor 4 Gene Polymorphisms with Normal Tension Glaucoma in South Korean population

1. Jung lim Kim¹
2. Wool Suh²
3. Sung min Kim²
4. Changwon Kee²

¹Department of Ophthalmology, Pusan Paik hospital, InJe University Medical College
²Department of Ophthalmology, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University
School of Medicine

Purpose: Toll-like Receptor 4 (TLR4) proteins recognize heat shock protein and lipopolysaccharide, which were previously noted as potential candidates for normal tension glaucoma (NTG) antigens. We investigated whether TLR4 polymorphisms are associated with NTG in South Korean population.

Methods: A total of 147 of NTG patients in South Korea were recruited from April 2007 to August 2008. Eight single nucleotide polymorphisms in the TLR4 gene were genotyped (rs10759930, rs1927914, rs1927911, rs12377632, rs2149356, rs11536889, rs7037117, rs7045953) and the diversities of alllele, genotype, haplotype were assessed. 380 healthy South Korean adults were recruited as controls.

Results: No statistically significant differences in the frequency of TLR4 allele and haplotype between NTG and control groups were detected (P>0.05/8=0.00625). There were also no statistically significant difference in the analysis of genotypes in the NTG
cases, compared with controls (P>0.05/8=0.00625).

Conclusions: TLR 4 single nucleotide polymorphisms were not associated with NTG. This results suggest that TLR4 single nucleotide polymorphisms may not play an important role in NTG pathogenesis in the South Korean population.