Association of interleukin-2, interleukin-4 and transforming growth factor-beta gene polymorphisms with Behcet's disease

Behçet's disease (BD) is a chronic immune-mediated disease, characterised by oral and genital lesions and ocular inflammation. As cytokines seem to have important roles in the pathogenesis of BD and production of cytokines could be affected by genetic polymorphisms, this study was performed to investigate gene polymorphisms of a number of cytokines in the patients with BD in comparison with control subjects. One hundred and fifty patients with BD were enrolled in this study. Interleukin (IL)-2 (-330, +166), IL-4 (-1098, -590, -33), IL-10 (-1082, -819, -592), IL-12 (-1188), IFN-γ (5644), transforming growth factor (TGF)-β (codon 10, 25), and IL-4RA (+1902) typing were performed by polymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers. In the patients with BD, there were significantly increased frequency of IL-2 (-330) GG genotype (p