Abstract:

Aim: Behçet’s disease (BD); is a systemic vasculitis characterized by various inflammatory lesions of the mucocutaneous, skin, eyes, joints, gastrointestinal and central nervous system. gene polymorphisms, this study was aimed to investigate the relationship between IL-4 gene (variable number tandem repeats-VNTR) polymorphism and pathogenesis of BD. Material and Methods: This study included 74 Behçet patients diagnosed according to the ‘International Behçet’s Disease Study Group’ criteria and 100 healthy controls. Genomic DNA was isolated from peripheral venous blood. IL-4 gene VNTR polymorphism was genotyped by the PCR-RFLP (polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism) method using specific primers. Behçet’s patients and control groups were analyzed for IL-4 gene VNTR (variable number tandem repeats-) polymorphism according to their genotype and allele distributions. In addition, with regard to some clinical findings, patients were compared according to their genotype and allele distribution. Results: The distribution of genotype and allele frequencies were not statistically different between BD patients and healthy controls (p>0.05). When we examined genotype and allele frequencies of IL-4 gene VNTR polymorphism according to some clinical characteristics, we did not observed a statistically significant association between the BD patients. It was found that the P2P2 genotype frequency was higher in patients with positive gastrointestinal system (GIS) involvement compared to GIS negative patients, but this difference was not statistically significant (90.0% vs 68.8%; p = 0.052). Conclusion: Our findings showed that IL-4 gene VNTR polymorphism was not related to the development and clinical manifestations of BD. The present study is expected to make an important contribution to the literature since there are limited researches on BD and IL-4 gene.

Keywords: