To investigate the association between microRNA (miR)-149 polymorphism and susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis (RA ), as well as the clinical characteristics in patients with RA .
A total of 200 RA patients and 120 healthy controls were recruited from Department of Rheumatology and Immunology of Nanjing First Hospital. After obtaining the informed consent, we collected 2 mL of anti-coagulated venous blood samples from all studied subjects to isolate the whole blood genomic DNA, and the clinical data were collected as well. Single nucleotide polymorphisms of miR-149 rs22928323 were detected by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Correlation between single nucleotide polymorphisms and clinical features were compared.
The frequencies of TT, TC and CC for rs22928323 of miR-149 were 25.3%, 51.1% and 23.6% or 18.3%, 20.0% and 61.7% in the patients or the healthy controls, respectively. The onset risk of allele C in RA patients was increased compared with allele T [OR=1.38, 95% CI (1.01-1.75), P=0.023]. There were no significant difference in rheumatoid factor, blood urine nitrogen, antikeratin antibody, and other clinical characteristics among the 3 genotypes in RA patients (P>0.05).
SNP rs22928323 in miR-149 is correlated with RA in the east of Chinese Han population, whereas there is no correlation between miR-149 polymorphism and clinical characteristics in patients with RA.