Tumour necrosis factor alpha and interleukin 10 gene polymorphisms and the risk of ischemic stroke in south Indian population.

Stroke is the leading cause of adult disability and mortality and is the third largest cause of death worldwide (Bonita et al. 2004). Prevalence of stroke in India varies in different regions of the country and ranges from 40 to 270 per 100,000 population (Anand et al. 2001). Both environmental and genetic factors are involved in the causation of strokes (Bevan and Markus 2004). Cytokines play an important role in immune response and also maintain the normal homeostatic environment of the central nervous system. The key phenomenon in cytokine contribution to ischemic stroke is endothelial transformation altering hemostatic and immunological balance towards the prothrombotic and proinflammatory states (Ross 1993). The genes encoding diverse cytokines may play a vital role in the susceptibility to stroke, and the production of cytokine varies among individuals and depends on cytokine gene polymorphisms. The present study was carried out to evaluate the association of tumour necrosis alpha (TNFα) -308G/A and interleukin (IL) 10-1082G/A polymorphisms with ischemic stroke in south Indian population and the results showed that the IL-10 ‘GG’ genotype is significantly associated with stroke.