The role of the genetic factors in the etiology of autoimmune thyroid disease

Autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITD) are the complex multifactorial diseases, arise due to interactions between genetic and environmental triggers. AITD cover a wide spectrum of phenotypes, that can be found in the same family with a high probability. Part of early studies investigate diseases history of patients. At present the data coming from epidemiological and enormous twin studies demonstrating a strong genetic influence on the development of AITD is announced. One of the most developing way is the searching and estimating of genetic associations. The susceptibility genes identified so far can be divided into three groups: immunological synapse genes, regulatory Tcells genes (Treg) and thyroidspecific genes. One of the main locus is the HLADR gene locus, which relates to immunological synapse genes. Moreover there are cytotoxic T lymphocyteassociated protein 4 gene, CD40 gene, protein tyrosine phosphatase22 gene relate to this group. The next is regulatory Tcells genes. Some examples of it are FOXP3 gene and CD25. The natural candidates for the genetic susceptibility to AITD are thyroidspecific genes, such as thyroglobulin and thyrotropin receptor genes. Dispite the data is accumulated - it is not absolutely clear what is the role of genetic influence to appearing of different phenotypes of AITD, disease severity, and response to therapy.