5-Lipoxygenase Promotor Polymorphism in Nasal Polyp Patients

Park, Seong Kook; Choi, Jung Bae; Jung, Hyun; Yea, Sung Su

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Nasal polyps are the most common mass lesions in the nasal cavity and occur on both infectious and noninfectious basis, and genetic etiology is suspected in the development of nasal polyps. 5-Lipoxygenase is the first enzyme committed in the metabolic pathway leading to the intracellular synthesis of leukotrienes. Some studies have shown that leukotrienes were significantly higher in nasal polyps from aspirin-sensitive asthmatics than in nasal polyps from aspirin-tolerant asthmatics and normal nasal mucosa. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate whether genetic polymorphism of the core promoter region of the 5-lipoxygenase gene contributes to the development of nasal polyps.
SUBJECTS AND METHOD
This study was conducted in 97 nasal polyp patients associated with chronic sinusitis and 92 healthy controls. Genetic polymorphisms of 5-lipoxygenase gene promoter were genotyped by PCR and direct sequencing.
RESULTS
There were no significant differences between the 5-lipoxygenase gene promoter polymorphisms in nasal polyp patients with chronic sinusitis and those in healthy controls (p=0.76). In the nasal polyp patients associated with chronic sinusitis, the frequencies of 6-bp deletion were lower than those of healthy controls (OR, 0.88 95% CI, 0.48-1.60), but there was no statistical significance (p=0.67). The frequencies of 6-bp addition were higher than those of healthy controls (OR, 1.96; 95% CI, 0.33-10.6), but no significant difference was found (p=0.68).
CONCLUSION
We concluded that 5-lipoxygenase gene promoter polymorphism did not show genetic predisposition with regard to nasal polyps in the Korean population.