ABSTRACT
Background: Clinical studies have reported a significant association between matrix metalloproteinases (MMP), particularly (MMP-9), and inflammatory diseases including Behçet’s disease (BD).
Purpose: To study the relationship between MMP-9 rs17576 gene polymorphism and the development of BD, and its relation to disease activity among Egyptian patients.
Methods: A total of 100 BD patients and 100 healthy control volunteers were genotyped for MMP-9 rs17576 polymorphism with polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP), followed by the confirmation of our results in random subgroups using direct DNA sequencing technique.
Results: The frequency of the GG genotype and G allele was significantly higher in BD patients as compared to the normal controls (p = 0.011, OR 8.61; p = 0.03, OR 1.65, respectively). There was no significant association between the MMP-9 rs17576 polymorphism and the clinical outcomes of BD.
Conclusion: our study suggests a significant association of the MMP-9 rs17576 A/G polymorphism with increased risk of BD development in Egyptian patients.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.