There is increasing evidence suggesting a role of RANTES in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and we evaluated the possible effect of RANTES gene on the susceptibility to RA in Chinese patients.
We examined the polymorphisms at the promoter positions -28 and -403 of this gene in 151 Chinese RA patients and 149 ethnically matched healthy controls.
The genotypic frequencies in this study were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. RA patients had significantly higher frequencies of the A allele (36.1% vs. 27.5%, p = 0.024) and A/A genotype (odds ratio [OR] = 3.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.4-7.9, p = 0.005) at the promoter -403 position. Differences in allele and genotype frequencies at the promoter -28 position between patients and controls were not statistically significant (for G allele, p = 0.103 and for genotype, p = 0.106). RA patients also had a significantly higher frequency of the -28 C/G with -403 A/A compound genotype (OR = 4.6, 95% CI = 1.5-14.5, p = 0.005), and a higher frequency of the -28 G/-403 A haplotype with marginal statistical significance (OR = 1.7, 95% CI = 1.0-3.1, p = 0.059).
Our results indicate that polymorphism in the promoter region of RANTES gene is associated with the susceptibility to RA in the Chinese population.