Absence of an association between intercellular adhesion molecule 1, complement receptor 1 and interleukin 1 receptor antagonist gene polymorphisms and severe malaria in a West African population
Bellamy R., Kwiatkowski D., Hill AV.
Many genes have been shown to be involved in host susceptibility to the severe forms of Plasmodium falciparum malaria but it is likely that a large number of malaria-susceptibility genes remain to be determined. We conducted a large case-control study of children with the severe forms of this disease-cerebral malaria and severe malarial anaemia–to attempt to identify these genes. Over 1200 children in The Gambia were typed for polymorphisms of the intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM- 1), complement receptor 1 (CR-1) and interleukin 1 receptor antagonist (IL-IRA) genes. None of the polymorphisms typed was significantly associated with severe disease. These data differed significantly from the results of a previous study (Chi 2 = 8.81; P = 0.003) in which the ICAM-1 gene polymorphism was shown to be significantly associated with cerebral malaria in a case-control study of 547 subjects in Kenya. This suggests that there may be heterogeneity in genetic susceptibility to this condition between these 2 African populations.