Human toxoplasmosis is caused by
the intracellular protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii. Although T. gondii infection is generally asymptomatic for most of the immunocompetent adults,
severe complications may occur particularly in pregnant women and
immunocompromised individual. Host cell immunity plays a critical role in
parasite differentiation and persistence in the host. Therefore, genetic
polymorphism in the host immune genes, for instance interferon-γ gene could be linked with possibility
of T. gondii infection. The objective of the study was to verify
the link between the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the IFN-γ gene of pregnant women and T.
gondii infection through correlating with anthropometric and sociodemographic parameters. In this study, ninety-two (N =
92) pregnant women (16 - 40 years) and healthy controls (N = 95) with similar
age ranges were included. Among them, 25% (n = 23) pregnant women were
seropositive for T. gondii IgG
antibodies by Rapid Test Assay. Allelic and genotypic frequencies of IFN-γ +874T/A (rs2430561) SNPs were
evaluated by using ARMS-PCR. The distribution
of the A and T alleles in the specific position of the IFN-γ gene in the T. gondii-infected pregnant women and the
control groups did not differ significantly,
according to the data. However, we found a higher frequency (13.04%) of A/A genotype in T. gondii infected pregnant women as compared to
non-infected individuals (8.70%), demonstrating that T. gondii infection
susceptibility may be increased by homozygosity for the A allele. Further
studies are to be needed to find out the link between host gene polymorphism
and T. gondii infection in
Bangladesh.
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