Interleukin-10 and interferon-gamma cytokine gene polymorphisms may be risk factors for chronic myelogenous leukemia.

We investigated the association of cytokine gene polymorphisms with the development of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) and whether there is an association between gene polymorphisms Th1 and Th2 or regulatory- type cytokines and CML. Thirty patients with CML and 60 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. All genotyping (TNF-α, TGF-β, IL-10, IL-6, and IFN-γ) studies were performed using sequence-specific primers PCR (PCR-SSP). Frequencies of IL-10 (-1082, -819, -592) GCC/ATA (p= 0.009) and IFN-γ; +874 T/A (p= 0.037) polymorphisms were significantly greater in the patients with CML. In contrast, significantly lower frequencies of the IFN-γ A/A (p= 0.004) genotype were observed in patients with CML compared with controls. The results suggest that the IL-10 GCC/ATA and IFN-γ T/A polymorphisms are potential risk factors, and that the IFN-γ A/A polymorphism is a protective factor, for CML in this study group.