No abstract

Vitiligo is a common disorder characterized by the appearance of white patches resulting from the loss of functional melanocytes and melanin from the skin. Recent studies have associated vitiligo with defective autoimmune system. The Interleukin-13 (IL-13) gene polymorphism maybe one of the important conditions for the development of a certain group of diseases, especially autoimmune diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between C-469T of IL-13 gene polymorphism (Figure 1) and vitiligo in Thi Qar province in southern Iraq. This study consisted of 100 subjects including 60 vitiligo patients (40 males, 20 females, mean age 31.85 ± 15.1 years) and 40 matched controls. No significant differences were observed between the two studied groups as regards sex, age and smoking. Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) PCR was used for the analysis of the studied polymorphism. The distribution of IL-13 C/T and T/T genotypes did not show significant difference between the patients and controls P-value=0.6 (OR=1.4; 95 %CI=0.53-3.75), respectively.