Association between Toll-Like Receptor 4 and Occurrence of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Susceptible to Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Northeast China

The purpose of this study is to explore why type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients are susceptible to pulmonary tuberculosis through detection of serum Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), an important immune-related receptor, especially in terms of content and TLR4 gene polymorphism. Patients with T2DM complicated by pulmonary tuberculosis (T2DMTB) were selected as the case group and T2DM patients without tuberculosis were selected as the control group. Forty patients in each group were randomly selected and their serum TLR4 levels were detected and compared. Determination of six sites of TLR4 gene polymorphism was carried out in 238 T2DMTB patients and 310 patients with T2DM, and results showed that the serum TLR4 content of the T2DMTB group was significantly lower than that of the T2DM group (p