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Updated: Jun 28, 2026

An Adoptive Transfer Model of Rheumatoid Arthritis in Mice
Published on: June 6, 2025
Association between the aggrecan gene and rheumatoid arthritis
Thais B de Souza1, Elisa F Mentz, Claiton V Brenol
1Curso de Biologia and Programa de Pós-Graduação em Diagnóstico Genético e Molecular, Universidade Luterana do Brasil, Canoas, Brazil.
Objective:
Genetic and environmental factors seem to be involved in the onset of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We analyzed whether a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) polymorphism in the aggrecan gene was associated to RA.
Methods:
The study population comprised 170 European-derived Brazilian patients with diagnosis of RA. The control group comprised 148 European-derived Brazilian healthy blood donors. The aggrecan VNTR polymorphism was genotyped by DNA amplification by polymerase chain reaction, followed by electrophoresis in polyacrylamide gel.
Results:
There was a statistically significant higher frequency of alleles of shorter length in the patient group compared to controls (p = 0.001), suggesting that individuals carrying short alleles are more likely to develop RA. There was no association between short alleles and clinical characteristics of RA.
Conclusion:
Our results provide evidence of an association between the aggrecan gene VNTR polymorphism and RA.
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