Abstract

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by angiogenesis, cell proliferation and bone and cartilage damage in the affected joint. Many genetic and environmental factors contribute to RA susceptibility. ITGAV is a member of the integrin family, which plays a major role in bone destruction, angiogenesis and macrophage-dependent inflammation and has been suggested that it may be an RA susceptibility gene. In this study, we investigated association of two single nucleotide polymorphisms in ITGAV (rs3738919 and rs3768777) with susceptibility to RA. Methods: Iranian patients with confirmed RA, aged over 50 years, were compared with healthy controls for allelic and genotypic frequencies of these polymorphisms. The subjects and controls were matched through their race, age and sex. After whole genome extraction, we compared genotype frequencies of analyzed alleles in RA patients and controls using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)restriction fragment length polymorphism assay. Association of rs3738919 and rs3768777 with RA was tested in these two sample sets using the chi(2)-test. Results: Statistical analysis indicated no association between RA and rs3738919 allele frequencies (C and A alleles), single genotype frequencies (AA, AC, CC) and combined genotype frequencies of (AC + CC vs. AA). We also found no evidence of association between rs3768777 SNP allele frequencies, single genotype frequencies and combined genotype frequencies and RA susceptibility. Conclusions: This study did not find any association between RA and ITGAV rs3738919 and rs3768777 polymorphisms in Iranian patients. However, this finding is not conclusive due to the limited sample size. A subsequent study with a larger sample size is recommended.