ABSTRACT
Background@#Interleukin-33 (IL-33) cytokine plays a crucial role in asthma pathogenesis. Recent studies have established that IL-33 activity was increased in serum, airway smooth muscle and epithelial cells from patients with asthma and this increase positively correlates with asthma severity. We hypothesized that several genetic variations that contributing IL-33 expression and activity, which may risk factor for susceptibility to asthma. In this study, we examined the association between rs16924159 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of IL-33 gene and asthma susceptibility.@*Methods@#51 asthma patients and 54 healthy volunteers were involved in this case-control study. Blood sample was collected for genomic DNA extraction. rs16924159 SNP genotyping was performed by the allele specific-polymerase chain reaction (AS-PCR) method. Statistical analysis was performed using STATA 13.0 software.@*Results@#The groups were matched for age, gender and body mass index (p>0.05). The distribution of rs16924159 allele and genotypes among patients and controls was found in accordance with those expected by the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (p=0.088). Adenine (A) allele frequency of rs16924159 was significantly different between case and control groups (OR = 1.91, 95% CI = 1.04- 3.51, p = 0.037). Also, homozygote A/A (OR=6.53, 95% CI 0.68-62.38, p=0.104) and heterozygote (OR=2.08, 95% CI 0.93-4.62, p=0.073) genotypes were more frequent among asthma patients than in controls.@*Conclusions@#From these findings, we conclude the A allele of rs16924159 SNP in IL-33 gene may be contributing to asthma susceptibility, increasing the carrier`s risk to the development of asthma.