Polymorphisms in innate immunity genes and risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma

Genetic variation in innate immunity may alter host-pathogen defence mechanisms and promote aberrant immune responses and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). To test this hypothesis, we investigated polymorphisms in innate immune genes in a pooled analysis of two population-based case-control studies of NHL from the San Francisco Bay Area (308 cases, 684 controls) and UK (596 cases, 758 controls). The caspase recruitment domain-containing protein 1007fs homozygote variant was positively associated with NHL risk (odds ratios (OR) = 3.1, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.1-8.8), whereas the toll-like receptor 4 1063A > G variant allele was inversely associated with diffuse large cell lymphoma (OR = 0.67, 95% CI 0.45-0.99). These results suggest that variation in innate immune genes may alter NHL susceptibility.