| BACKGROUD AND OBJECTIVES :Although technologic, pharmacologic, and surgical advances have improved the outcomes of many diseases, the mortality of septic shock continues to be distressingly high. It is ironic that the mortality from septic shock, the most common cause of death in the critical care unit, has not decreased dramatically in the past decade. Approximately one-half of the cases of sepsis and septic shock are caused by gram-negative bacteria. The evidence for genetic susceptibility to common infectious diseases is growing. Genetic epidemiologic studies suggest a strong genetic influence on the outcome from sepsis.A genetic polymorphism is an allelic variant that exists stably in a population in a frequency that can not be accounted for by new mutations (generally>l%). The most frequent type of polymorphism is the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), which can be a substitution, a deletion, or an insertion of a single nucleotide. Approximately 1 in every 300 to 500 bases of human DNA may be a SNP. The mutation can be in coding(exon) or noncoding (intron) regions of the gene or in the promoter region. When the SNP is within a protein-coding region of a gene, the... |
