Abdel-Aziz Mohamed, A: Study of IL-1RA & IL-4 Genes Polymorp

Cytokines play a key role in immune response and inflammation. IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-Ra) is a naturally occurring structural variant of IL-1 that competitively inhibits receptor binding of IL-1 induced pro-inflammatory activity. IL-4 an anti-inflammatory cytokine plays a key role in activation and differentiation of B-cells, mast cells.IL-4 is also known to inhibit macrophage activation and therefore may be involve in cancer. The two important cytokines genes IL-1Ra and IL-4 of 124 healthy individuals from the Nile Delta region of Egypt were compared with the published polymorphism of other populations. Genomic DNA was isolated from the blood of all subjects and the variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) polymorphisms of IL-1Ra and IL-4 genes was identified by polymerase chain reaction. It was seen that our population differs from Mediterranean, European, African and Asian populations at IL-1Ra (VNTR) and IL-4 (VNTR) genes.