Abstract
Signal transducer and activator of transcription 6 (STAT6) is a key transcription factor involved in interleukin 4 (IL-4) and IL-13-mediated Th2 response. The STAT6 gene is located on chromosome 12q13.3-14.1 (IBD2 region) and is therefore a positional and functional candidate gene for study in inflammatory bowel disease. We investigated the G2964A polymorphism in the 3' untranslated region of the STAT6 gene in Dutch patients with inflammatory bowel disease and healthy controls. The G2964A polymorphism in the STAT6 gene was genotyped in 141 unrelated Dutch Caucasian patients with ulcerative colitis, 183 patients with Crohn's disease and 173 healthy individuals by PCR and the amplification-created restriction site method. Patients with Crohn's disease were classified according to the Vienna classification and the patients with ulcerative colitis were classified with the age at onset, extent of disease and colectomy. We did not find significant differences in genotype and allele frequencies of the G2964A polymorphism in the STAT6 gene between ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease and healthy controls. Subgroups of the patients with Crohn's disease classified according to the Vienna classification and those with ulcerative colitis classified according to age of onset, disease extension and colectomy did not differ in the distribution of this polymorphism. The STAT6 G2964A gene polymorphism is not involved in the overall susceptibility or in determining the phenotype of IBD.