Study of the CTLA-4 gene polymorphisms in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) samples from Malaysia

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the polymorphisms of the exon 1 (+49A/G), promoter sites (–1722T/C, –1661A/G, –318C/T), and 3′-untranslated region (3′-UTR) (+6230 A/G) of the CTLA-4 gene in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) affected patients. Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism was used to determine genotypes of these five markers in 130 SLE patients and 130 healthy controls. Of the five tested polymorphisms, there was no statistical significant difference between the genotypic and allelic frequencies of patients with SLE and controls. Hence, we propose that the CTLA-4 gene does not play a major role in the genetic susceptibility to the development of SLE in the Malaysian population.

Keywords::

• CTLA-4
• SLE
• polymorphism
• genetic susceptibility

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the University of Malaya research grant Vote FP064/2007C and by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Malaysia through grant 36-02-03-6006.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.