Investigation of single nucleotide polymorphism of the CCL22 gene at position 16C/A in patients with gestational trophoblastic disease

Gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD) is one of complications of pregnancy and has different subtypes (complete mole, partial mole and choriocarcinoma). Macrophage derived factor or CCL22 is a member of chemokines that produced by macrophages, dendritic cells and tumors cells. It has an important role in the recruitment of T regulatory cells and T helper2 lymphocytes to the site of tumor. This chemokine has several polymorphisms which the most important is at position 16C/A. This study was aimed to evaluate the polymorphism of this gene and its relationship with GTD. In this case-control study, the peripheral blood of 110 patients with GTD and 120 healthy pregnant women were used for DNA extraction. The polymorphism of the CCL22 gene was investigated with Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method and analyzed by means of Epi Info 2000 and SPSS (version 11.5) at the significant level of P<0.05. No significant difference was observed in the polymorphism of CCL22 (including genotypes CC, CA and AA) and the frequency of its alleles between the case and control groups. Moreover, there was not a significant association between CCL22 polymorphism and subtypes of GTD. It seems that genetic alteration of CCL22 is not associated with GTD,therefor, investigation of other chemokines gene polymorphisms is suggested in future studies.