ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Association of Fas Ligand gene polymorphism with Stevens–Johnson syndrome

M Ueta, C Sotozono, T Inatomi, K Kojima, J Hamuro and S Kinoshita

Department of Ophthalmology, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan

Correspondence to:
Dr M Ueta, Department of Ophthalmology, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Hirokoji, Kawaramachi, Kamigyoku, Kyoto 602-0841, Japan; mueta{at}ophth.kpu-m.ac.jp

Background: Stevens–Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) are acute severe blistering diseases of the skin and also two of the most devastating ocular surface diseases leading to corneal damage and loss of vision. The extreme rarity of cutaneous and ocular surface reactions to drug therapies led us to suspect individual susceptibility. SJS/TEN patients in the acute stage were reported to manifest increased serum levels of Fas Ligand (FasL). Thus, we performed SNP association analysis of the FasL gene.

Methods: In 76 Japanese SJS/TEN patients with ocular surface complications and 160 Japanese healthy controls, we examined four SNPs of FasL reported in the Japanese Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (JSNP) database by sequencing.

Results: The SNP rs.3830150 A/G showed a significant strong inverse association with SJS/TEN. Analysis of the genotype pattern of SNPs rs.3830150 and rs.2639614 (rs.3830150 A/A–rs.2639614 G/G) also manifested a strong inverse association with SJS/TEN.

Conclusion: FasL gene polymorphisms might be associated with SJS/TEN.

Funding: This work was supported in part by grants-in-aid for scientific research from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, CREST from JST, a research grant from the Kyoto Foundation for the Promotion of Medical Science, and the Intramural Research Fund of Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine.

Competing interests: None.

Ethics approval: Ethics approval was obtained.

Patient consent: Prior written informed consent was obtained from all participants after the purpose of the research and the experimental protocols were thoroughly explained.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?