Only one independent genetic association with rheumatoid arthritis within the KIAA1109-TENR-IL2-IL21 locus in Caucasian sample sets: confirmation of association of rs6822844with rheumatoid arthritis at a genome-wide level of significance

Abstract

The KIAA1109-TENR-IL2-IL21 gene cluster, that encodes an interleukin (IL-21) that plays an important role in Th17 cell biology, is the 20th locus for which there is a genome-wide (P<or=5x10(-8)) level of support for association with RA. As for most other autoimmune diseases, with the notable exception of T1D, rs6822844 is the dominant association in the locus. The KIAA1109-TENR-IL2-IL21 locus also confers susceptibility to other autoimmune phenotypes with a heterogeneous pattern of association.