The effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms of STAT3 on epilepsy in children

摘要

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) on epilepsy in children. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 169 children suffering from epilepsy admitted in No. 1 People’s Hospital of Jining from July 2015 to December 2016 were enrolled as the research subjects. Immunohistochemistry and real time-PCR were used for analysis of the expression of STAT3 and p-STAT3 in epilepsy patients. The genotypes and alleles of rs1053005 and re744166 were analyzed through polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Statistical analysis was conducted to explore the correlation between the polymorphism of STAT3 and the incidence of epilepsy in children, and the polymorphism of STAT3 in the drug-resistant and non-resistant patients was compared. RESULTS: Both the STAT3 and p-STAT3 were over-expressed in epilepsy patients. The GG genotype of rs1053005 was significantly lower in epilepsy patients than that of health control, p0.05. By contrast, no significant difference was found in genotypes of rs744166 between epilepsy and healthy children. When comparing the genotypes of drug-resistant patients and that of non-resistant patients, the distribution of rs1053005 genotypes in the two groups showed a significant difference, p0.05. No statistical difference was observed in rs744166 genotypes. CONCLUSIONS: STAT3 polymorphism was associated with the risk of epilepsy and drug resistance to epilepsy. This study may provide a better understanding of STAT3 in epilepsy patients and provide new targets for the treatment of epilepsy patients.