Genetic variants of STAT4 associated with rheumatoid arthritis in persons of Asian and European ancestry do not replicate in African Americans

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was recently genetically associated with signal transducer and activator of transcription 4 ( STAT4 ) in white individuals.1 This study included over 6000 participants to produce an odds ratio (OR) of 1.32 at rs7574865 (p<0.001). Three other single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) located in intron 3 of STAT4 (rs8179673, rs10181656, rs6752770), three SNP in strong linkage disequilibrium with rs7574865 (r2=1.0; rs7582694, rs7568275, rs11889341) and a haplotype driven by the T allele of rs7574865 are also associated with RA susceptibility.1 Association with rs7574865 replicated in several Asian and European-based populations (see table 1). As racial/ethnic differences have been observed at RA susceptibility loci, including CTLA4, PADI4, PTPN22, RUNX1 and SLC22A4 , we aimed to determine if an association with these STAT4 markers and RA susceptibility is consistent in African Americans. View this table: Table 1 Previously published genetic associations with the T allele of rs7574865 …