ABSTRACT
Objective To verify the association of a disintegrin and metalloproteinase domain 33 (ADAM33) polymorphisms in childhood asthma susceptibility and severity in patients with moderate and severe asthma.Methods A total of 144 controls and 110 asthmatic patients were recruited for this hospitalbased case-control study.Two polymorphic sites (V4,T2) were genotyped using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method.The gene-gene interactions were analyzed with the multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) software.Results The allele frequencies of three SNPs (V4,T2) of ADAM33 in childhood asthma group were significantly higher than control group (P ＜ 0.01,OR =2.36 ～ 2.96,95％ CI:1.56-1.78 ～ 3.56-4.94).For the SNPs V4,GC genotype frequencies of both moderate and severe groups were significantly higher from the control group (P ＜ 0.05) ; the CC genotype frequencies in severe group were significantly higher than control group (P ＜ 0.05) ; the genotype GA of T2 locus in severe group and AA genotype frequencies in moderate group were significantly higher than control group (P ＜0.01 ～0.05) ; there were no significant differences for both allele and genotype frequencies of S2 locus between the childhood asthma and control group (P ＞ 0.05).By MDR analysis,the best interaction model was the four-factor model that the V4,T2 genotypes were the subgroup to predict asthma risk.Conclusions Our results highlight the role of ADAM33 as a susceptibility gene for childhood asthma,and the interactions among ADAM33 V4 and T2 are also associated with childhood asthma.