Purpose: Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) syndrome is an autoimmune disease. The monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) gene has been implicated in the pathogenesis of certain autoimmune diseases. The aim of this study was to examine whether a MCP-1 polymorphism was associated with VKH syndrome.
Methods: A case-control analysis was performed using genomic DNA samples from 307 VKH patients and 319 age-, sex-, and ethnically-matched healthy controls. The MCP-1 polymorphism at the -2518 A/G locus was genotyped using polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) assay.
Results: The distribution of genotypic frequency of the MCP-1 -2518 A/G polymorphism in all subjects did not deviate from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE; p>0.05). Allelic and genotypic frequency analysis revealed no significant difference between VKH patients and healthy controls for the MCP-1 -2518 A/G polymorphism (p>0.05). No significant differences were found according to gender and neither was found according to extraocular findings including neck stiffness, tinnitus, alopecia, poliosis, dysacusia, scalp hypersensitivity, and vitiligo.
Conclusions: The result suggests that the susceptibility to VKH syndrome in Chinese Han patients may be not influenced by the MCP-1 -2518 A/G polymorphism.