Study on the TIM-4 gene polymorphism and its association with the susceptibility to allergic asthma in Chinese Ban population of Hubei province
Objective To investigate whether two polymorphism sites of the the exon 2 Lys65Lys(G/A) and exon 9 Va1365Met(G/A) in T ceils immunoglobulin domain and mucin domain protein-4(TIM-4) are associated with asthma in Chinese Han population of Hubei province. Methods The polymorphisms were de-tected with polymerase ehain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism(PCR-RFLP) in 185 cases of al-lergic asthma and 162 healthy controls. The genotype and allele frequencies were calculated and analyzed. Re-sults(1)The genotype frequencies of G/G, G/A and A/A in Lys65Lys(G/A)polymorphism were 0.840, 0.160 and 0 respectively in the healthy population, and were 0.859, 0.141 and 0 respectively in the allergic asthma population. No significant difference in genotype and allele frequencies was found between asthma pa-tients and the control subjects (P=0.603, P=0.618). (2) The polymorphism of the Val365 Met(G/A) was not detected in our study. Conclusion There is polymorphism site of the exon 2 Lys65Lys(G/A)in TIM-4, but this polymorphism site is not associated with asthma in Han nationality in Hubei Chinese population. There is no SNP of the exon 9 Val365Met(G/A) in TIM-4 in Chinese Han population of Hubei province. 
 
Key words: 
T cells immunoglobulin domain and muein domain protein-4 (TIM-4);  Single nucleotide polymorphism(SNP);  Allergic asthma