The number of Internet searches has recently been used by Google to estimate the influenza incidence in the United States. We examined the correlation between the Google Flu Trends tool and sentinel networks estimates in several European countries during the 2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic and found a good correlation between estimates and peak incidence timing, with the highest peaks in countries where Internet is most frequently used for health-related searching. Although somehow limited, Google could be a valuable tool for syndromic surveillance.

The results of our group and from the British and French studies strongly suggest that polymorphisms of the PADI4 gene do not play a role in susceptibility to RA in European populations.

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Background: A Japanese study has described a strong association between rheumatoid arthritis and several polymorphisms located in the Fc receptor-like 3 (FCRL3) gene, a member of a family of genes related to Fc receptors located on chromosome 1q21-23. Objectives: To evaluate the association between rheumatoid arthritis and FCLR3 polymorphisms in a large cohort of Caucasian patients with rheumatoid arthritis and healthy controls of Spanish origin. Owing to the described functional link between the FCRL3 polymorphisms and the transcription factor nuclear factor kB (NFkB), a functional polymorphism located in the NFkB1 gene was included. Methods: 734 patients with rheumatoid arthritis from Madrid and Granada, Spain, were included in the study, along with 736 healthy controls. Polymorphisms in the FCRL3 gene were studied by TaqMan technology. The 294ins/delATTG NFkB1 promoter polymorphism was analysed by fragment analysis after polymerase chain reaction with labelled primers. Genotypes were compared using 362 contingency tables and x 2 values. Results: No overall differences were found in any of the FCRL3 polymorphisms and in the NFkB1 promoter polymorphism when patients were compared with controls. However, when stratified according to NFkB1 genotypes, a susceptibility effect of FCRL3 polymorphisms was observed in patients who were heterozygotes for NFkB1 (p c = 0.003). Conclusions: The FCRL3 polymorphisms associated with rheumatoid arthritis in a Japanese population are not associated per se with rheumatoid arthritis in a Spanish population. A genetic interaction was found between NFkB1 and FCRL3 in Spanish patients with rheumatoid arthritis. These findings may provide a general rationale for divergent genetic association results in different populations.

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