Association between microRNA polymorphisms and chronic pancreatitis.

Backgroud: MicroRNAs play important roles in the development and progression of many human diseases. mir-146a could significantly suppress the induction of proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, NF-κB and chemokine MCP-1, which might play important roles in chronic pancreatitis. This study was conducted to evaluate the association between mir-146a rs2910164, a functional polymorphism in the pre-mir-146a, and chronic pancreatitis risk.

Methods: The rs2910164 genotypes were determined in 165 patients with chronic pancreatitis and 200 healthy controls who were frequency matched for age and gender. One single nucleotide polymorphism (rs2910164) was genotyped by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RLFP).

Results: The frequency of individuals who carried [G] allele was significantly higher in cases (62.7%) than in controls (53.7%, p = 0.015), which resulted in a statistically significant pathogenic effect associated with this variant allele (OR: 1.448, CI: 1.076-1.950; p = 0.015). The GC and GG genotypes showed strong and significant increased risk for complication of chronic pancreatitis (OR = 3.668, 95%CI = 1.233-10.916, p = 0.019; OR = 5.667, 95%CI = 1.852-17.336, p = 0.002). The individuals carrying G allele confer a lower expression level of mature mir-146a.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that the mir-146a rs2910164 may contribute to genetic susceptibility to chronic pancreatitis, and that mir-146a might be involved in chronic pancreatitis development.