Abstract
Abstract Background: The cause of “sleeping sickness”, which struck many residents of Kalachi settlement in 2013-2015, has still not been identified, despite the efforts of Kazakh scientists. Some unknown factor X, causing sleeping sickness, appears likely to affect people. We assumed that polymorphism in the genes of the orexinoergic system, which is the most important mechanism in sleep/awakening regulating, can determine individual susceptibility to factor X. Methods: To test this hypothesis, we conducted a case-control study of polymorphisms in genes which has shown to have previously been associated with nervous disorder HCRT (rs760282), HCRTR1 (rs2271933) and HCRTR2 (rs2653349 and rs3122156).Results: Of the four polymorphisms tested, only rs2653349 showed association with sleeping sickness in both the common sample and the sample of Russian. However, despite association discovered, due to the lack of homozygote on minor allele A in the test group we cannot point it out as a risk for a “sleeping sickness”. Instead, we point out a risky heterozygote genotype (GA (OR = 3.94, 95%CI = 1.43 – 10.88, codominant model, p = 0.0011).Conclusions: When the sample is divided by sex, relation between rs2653349 and “sleeping sickness” appeared only in the female sample (OR = 3.82, 95%CI = 1.05 – 13.94, codominant model, p = 0.0037).