Abstract
CONTEXT: Asthma is a complex inflammatory condition often associated with bronchial hyper reactivity and atopy. Genetic and environmental factors are implicated in the etiopathogenesis of asthma. Regulated upon Activation Normal T- cell Expressed and Secreted (RANTES) is a CC chemokine responsible for the recruitment of inflammatory cells, suggesting a possible role for this chemokine in asthma. Both -403A and -28G alleles of the RANTES promoter region were found to be associated with asthma/atopy in some but not all studies. AIM: The purpose of this study was to investigate the genetic influence of -403A and -28G alleles of the RANTES promoter region on the development of asthma in Lebanon. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: This case control study was conducted at Makassed Hospital, Beirut on 40 asthmatic patients and 38 healthy controls. METHODS: RANTES gene polymorphisms -403G/A and -28C/G alleles were genotyped using PCR-RFLP. RESULTS: No significant differences in allele or genotype frequencies for the RANTES gene polymorphisms between asthmatic patients and controls were found. The difference of the -403 GA genotype frequency between patients and controls was not statisti-cally significant; (OR=0.8, 95% CI=0.2-2.3, P=0.8). Similarly, the difference of the A-allele frequencies between patients and con-trols was not significant (OR=0.824, CI=0.3-2.2, P=0.7). CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that RANTES gene promoter polymorphisms are not associated with asthma susceptibility in the Lebanese population.