ABSTRACT
Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) is a common chronic systemic autoimmune disease in children. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of signal transducer and activator of transcription 4 (STAT4) gene are suspected to have association with the risk of autoimmune diseases. Previous investigations have indicated that the STAT4 rs7574865 T allele was significantly associated with rheumatoid arthritis. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the association of STAT4 SNPs with JRA in Iranian population. T allele of STAT4 rs7574865 SNP was less frequent in patients than in controls, and the difference was not significant (p = 0.19, OR = 0.72, 95% CI: 0.44 −1.17). In addition, G allele of this SNP was frequent but not significant in JRA patients (p = 0.19, OR = 1.38, 95% CI: 0.85–2.25). Neither alleles nor genotypes of rs7601754 SNP of STAT4 gene demonstrated associations with JRA. We recognize that gene variants of STAT4 did not affect JRA susceptibility in Iranian population.
Funding
This study was funded by Deputy of Research, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (grant number 94-03-41-30267).
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.