Significant Association between IL-17F Promoter Region Polymorphism and Susceptibility to Asthma in a Korean Population

Abstract

Background: Individual differences in susceptibility to asthma would be expected because of common DNA variants of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across populations. The pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-17F has homology with the IL-17 motif and induces the expression of other inflammatory cytokines in airway epithelial cells. This study aimed to identify IL-17F gene polymorphisms and to determine a possible association between these polymorphisms and susceptibility to asthma through a case-control study in a Korean population. Methods: We identified SNPs in the IL-17F gene by sequencing. Genotyping was conducted using the high-resolution melting (HRM) method on 424 asthma patients and 548 healthy controls. Results: The genotype and allele frequencies of rs1889570 SNP were significantly different between asthma patients and healthy controls (p = 0.001 and 0.002, respectively). The rs1889570 SNP genotype was also positively associated with the number of peripheral blood eosinophils in asthma patients (p = 0.03). The frequencies of haplotypes AA (p = 0.01), GG (p = 0.01) and AG (p = 0.006) were significantly different between asthma patients and healthy controls. Conclusions: In this study, we confirmed that the rs1889570 polymorphism of the IL-17F gene is associated with susceptibility to asthma in a Korean population.