Association of LTA gene haploblock with periodontal disease in Italian adults.

Background: Periodontitis is a common oral disease caused by host inflammatory response towards bacteria biofilm. The chronic activation of immune response leads to destruction of teeth supporting tissue, bone loss and tooth detachment. Different factors could be involved in the development and severity of the disease; among them the host genetic background should be considered. Objectives: In our study, we analysed haploblocks in a genomic region within major histocompatibility complex (MHC) locus aimed at disclosing a possible correlation with the risk of periodontal disease in 602 adult subjects from North- East Italy. Results: The CTTAC haploblock (formed by LTA-rs2857709, LTA-rs2844484, LTA- rs2229094, LTA-rs2229092 and LTA-rs1041981 polymorphisms) correlated with pro- tection towards periodontitis condition, after regression analysis including age and smoking status as covariates (P-value = 0.015). Conclusion: Our results suggest that a haplotype within LTA gene (encoding for lym- photoxin alpha) is involved in the susceptibility towards chronic periodontitis.