Association of glucocorticoid receptor gene polymorphism with myasthenia gravis

Abstract

To investigate the association of two glucocorticoid receptor (GR) polymorphisms (BclI, ER22/23EK) with Myasthenia Gravis (MG). The genotypes of GR in 61 MG patients (MGG) and 57 age and gender-matched healthy controls (HCG) were determined by polymerase chain reaction and nucleotide sequence determination. The frequencies of three genotypes (GG, CG, CC) in BclIwere 3.3%, 34.4%, 62.3% in MGG and 3.5%, 38.6%, 57.9%in HCG respectively. The difference in the distribution of genotypes between MGG and HCG was statistically insignificant (P = 0.887). The frequencies of G and C allele were 20.5% vs 79.5 %in MGG, and 22.8% vs 77.2% in HCG. The difference in the distribution of alleles between MGG and HCG was statistically insignificant (P = 0.968). The genotype frequencies in two groups were both in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (P > 0.05). The genotypes of ER22/23EK in MGG and HCG were all GG and no mutation was detected. BclI and ER22/23EK polymorphisms of GR have no definite relationship with the risk of MG.