The effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms of STAT3 on epilepsy in children

To investigate the effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) on epilepsy in children.

A total of 169 children suffering from epilepsy admitted in No. 1 People's Hospital of Jining from July 2015 to December 2016 were enrolled as the research subjects. Immunohistochemistry and real time-PCR were used for analysis of the expression of STAT3 and p-STAT3 in epilepsy patients. The genotypes and alleles of rs1053005 and re744166 were analyzed through polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Statistical analysis was conducted to explore the correlation between the polymorphism of STAT3 and the incidence of epilepsy in children, and the polymorphism of STAT3 in the drug-resistant and non-resistant patients was compared.

Both the STAT3 and p-STAT3 were over-expressed in epilepsy patients. The GG genotype of rs1053005 was significantly lower in epilepsy patients than that of health control, p<0.05. By contrast, no significant difference was found in genotypes of rs744166 between epilepsy and healthy children. When comparing the genotypes of drug-resistant patients and that of non-resistant patients, the distribution of rs1053005 genotypes in the two groups showed a significant difference, p<0.05. No statistical difference was observed in rs744166 genotypes.

STAT3 polymorphism was associated with the risk of epilepsy and drug resistance to epilepsy. This study may provide a better understanding of STAT3 in epilepsy patients and provide new targets for the treatment of epilepsy patients.