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Gene polymorphisms of tumor necrosis factor alpha and antioxidant enzymes in bronchial asthma
Milena Despotovic1, Tatjana J Stoimenov1, Ivana Stankovic2
1Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Nis, Serbia.
Background:
Bronchial asthma is an inflammatory disease resulting from a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Single nucleotide polymorphisms in the regulatory regions of cytokine and antioxidant enzyme genes may affect cytokine production and enzyme activity, and thus play a contributory role in asthma pathogenesis.
Objectives:
The aim of this study was to examine the association of manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) Ala16Val, catalase (CAT) A-21T and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) G-308A polymorphisms with bronchial asthma.
Material And Methods:
A total of 79 patients with asthma and 95 healthy controls were screened for MnSOD Ala16Val, CAT A-21T and TNF-α G-308A polymorphisms using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method.
Results:
The results obtained showed significantly higher prevalence of the MnSOD ValVal genotype (χ2=14.463, df=2, p=0.001) and MnSOD 16Val allele (χ2=12.862, p=0.026, OR=0.451, 95% CI=0.291-0.699) in patients with asthma compared to controls. The genotype and allele frequencies distribution of CAT A-21T and TNF-α G-308A gene polymorphisms did not show differences between patients and controls.
Conclusions:
Our results show an association of MnSOD Ala16Val genetic polymorphism with asthma in a Serbian population and suggest a protective role of the MnSOD 16Ala allele.
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