Genetic association between CARD9 variants and inflammatory bowel disease was not replicated in a Chinese Han population

In order to investigate whether CARD9 gene is associated with IBD in Chinese Han population, we replicated 2 SNPs of CARD9 which have been reported to be significantly associated with IBD. Two SNPs were genotyped using polymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers in 288 patients (232 CD patients, 56 UC patients) and 274 controls. The frequencies and distributions of alleles and genotypes of the tested SNPs were analyzed, and no significant differences were found between patients and controls. We observed no significant association between the investigated CARD9 SNPs and the susceptibility of either CD or UC. Further studies with larger sample size focusing on different ethnicities are required to elucidate the correlation between CARD9 and IBD.