Frequency of M287T/AS3MT Single Nucleotide Polymorphism in an Iranian Population

Background: To determine the frequency of the single nucleotide polymorphism M287T in exon 9 of the AS3MT gene in Iranian population and to assess the difference in allele frequencies with other ethnicities. Subjects and Methods: Genotyping analysis was performed on 150 healthy subjects using the PCR-RFLP assay. We used chi-square analysis to check the deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and compare of the observed genotype frequencies in various ethnic. The level of statistical significance was considered as p<0.05. Results: The homozygous CC, homozygous TT and heterozygous CT genotypes were observed in 2%, 80% and 18% of participated individuals. The SNP rs11191439 passed the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium chi-squared test with p-value>0.05 and had a minor allele frequency (MAF)>5%. Conclusion: Iranians are genetically very similar to Caucasian and African individuals and they are considerably different from other East Asians including Koreans, Chinese and Japanese individuals. Due to genetic polymorphisms can contribute to the variability in AS3MT activity; they may contribute to interindividual as well as intra-ethnic differences in response to the detoxification of arsenic.