Introduction: Nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (NCL/P) is a common orofacial anomaly with a multifactorial etiology. The genetic component of NCL/P etiology is complex with multiple genes involved. The transforming growth factor beta 3 (TFGβ3) is among the strong susceptibility genes that have been shown to be involved in morphogenesis of lip and palate.
Materials and Methods:Case-control study design was used in this study. Cases (n=237) were patients affected with NCL/P identified at the Roosevelt Hospital in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Controls (n=168) were individuals with no history of NCL/P from the same hospital. Genotypes were established by PCR and PAGE for TGFβ3 rs2300607 A/T SNP and by PCR and sequencing for TGFβ3 rs2268625 C/T SNP.Results: For rs2300607A/T, a proportion of TT homozygotes was significantly higher (p=0.029) in cases than in controls (13.92% vs 5.36%). T allele frequency was 0.340 in cases and 0.274 in controls. Also for rs2268625 C/T, a significantly higher proportion of TT homozygotes was found among cases than among controls (p=0.041; 54.0% vs. 48.98%). Frequency of mutated T allele was 0.744 in cases and 0.694 in controls.
Conclusion:The results of our study showed for the first time the association between TGFβ3 rs2268625 C/T polymorphism and NCL/P and confirmed for Guatemalan population the association between TGFβ3 rs2300607 A/T polymorphism and NCL/P found by Ichikawa in Japanese by Ichikava et al. in 2006. Thus, our findings suggest that rs2268625 C/T and rs2300607 A/T mutations in the TGFβ3 gene are associated with NCL/P in Guatemalan population.
Keywords Nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate TFGβ3;TGFβ3 rs2300607 A/T; TGFβ3 rs2268625; C/T Guatemala; Casecontrol study
IntroductionOrofacial clefts (OFC) are among the most common craniofacial malformations in humans. The prevalence rates vary between 0.5 and 3 per 1000 total births, with considerable variations between populations, genders and geographic regions [1].In general, Asian and Amerindian populations have the highest frequencies of OFC, often at 1/500, and Africanderived populations have the lowest frequencies at 1/2500 [2]. Tolarova and Cervenka [3] analyzed the occurrence of OFC in an ethnically diverse population in California. The non-Hispanic whites had the highest birth prevalence of isolated clefts, followed by Asians and blacks who had the lowest values.In the USA, twenty infants are born with an orofacial cleft on an average day, or 7500 every year. Children who have an OFC require several surgical procedures and complex medical treatments and, together with their families, often suffer serious psychological problems. The estimated lifetime medical cost for each child with an OFC is $100,000, amounting to $750 million for all children with OFC born each year in the USA [4].Recently, over 30 potential candidate loci and candidate genes throughout the human genome were identified as strong susceptibility genes for OFC. The MSX1 (4p16.1), TGFα (2p13), TGFβ1 (19q13.1), TGFβ2 (1q41), TGFβ3 (1...