ABSTRACT
Asthma is a complex inflammatory condition often associated with bronchial hyper reactivity and atopy. Genetic and environmental factors are implicated in the etiopathogenesis of asthma. Regulated upon Activation Normal T- cell Expressed and Secreted [RANTES] is a CC chemokine responsible for the recruitment of inflammatory cells, suggesting a possible role for this chemokine in asthma. Both -403A and -28G alleles of the RANTES promoter region were found to be associated with asthma/atopy in some but not all studies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the genetic influence of -403A and -28G alleles of the RANTES promoter region on the development of asthma in Lebanon. This case control study was conducted at Makassed Hospital, Beirut on 40 asthmatic patients and 38 healthy controls. RANTES gene polymorphisms -403G/A and -28C/G alleles were genotyped using PCR-RFLP. No significant differences in allele or genotype frequencies for the RANTES gene polymorphisms between asthmatic patients and controls were found. The difference of the -403 GA genotype frequency between patients and controls was not statistically significant; [OR=0.8, 95% CI=0.2-2.3, P=0.8]. Similarly, the difference of the A-allele frequencies between patients and controls was not significant [OR=0.824, CI=0.3-2.2, P=0.7]. Our data show that RANTES gene promoter polymorphisms are not associated with asthma susceptibility in the Lebanese population