Interleukin-1 alpha-889 C/T Polymorphism in Turkish Patients with Late-Onset Alzheimer's Disease

Background/Aims: The polymorphism (rs1800587) in the 5'-flanking regulatory region at -889 of the interleukin-1 alpha gene has been shown to be associated with inflammatory diseases and Alzheimer's disease (AD). The aim of the current study is to determine whether there is an association between the promoter region polymorphism of the interleukin-1 alpha gene and late-onset AD in a cohort of Turkish patients. Methods: One hundred and four subjects with dementia of the Alzheimer type and 103 age-matched controls were genotyped according to the PCR with confronting two-pair primers method. Results: Although the distribution of genotypes did not significantly differ (p = 0.107), the difference between allelic frequency was nearly significant according to a chi(2) test ( p = 0.05) when the controls and patients were compared. Conclusion: Our results showed that there is no association between the -889 C/T transition on the interleukin-1 alpha gene and late-onset AD in the Turkish population. Copyright (c) 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel