Affiliations: [a] Department of Experimental Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy | [b] Laboratory of Biocomputing, Giorgio Prodi Center/Department of Biology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Elisa Porcellini, PhD, Laboratory of Immunopathology and Immunogenetics, Department of Experimental Pathology, University of Bologna, Via S. Giacomo 14, 40126 Bologna, Italy. Tel.: +39 051 2094700; Fax: +39 051 2094746; E-mail: elisa.porcellini3@unibo.it.
Abstract: Our previous works showed that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes with regulatory function upon inflammatory response and cholesterol metabolism were associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk. The list comprises SNPs located on the promoters of alpha 1 antichymotrypsin (rs1884082), hydroxy methyl glutaryl coenzime A reductase (rs376140), tumor necrosis factor alpha (rs1800629), and interleukin 10 (rs1800869). Here we investigated the effect of these SNPs on the binding for transcription factors. We computationally detected putative binding sites for transcription factors located in the SNP regions. To this aim, the TESS program for scanning the promoter sequences against the binding-site models available at TRANSFACT and JASPAR databases was adopted. All the analyzed SNPs appeared to affect the binding of myeloid zinc finger protein 1 (MZF-1) to the promoter sequence of the above reported genes. Therefore 16 SNPs in MZF-1 gene were tested in 120 AD cases and 88 controls to asses a possible association between MZF-1 and AD. 14 SNPs showed no variability in AD and control populations, while two SNPs rs4756 and rs2228162 showed the three genotypes. Genotype distributions and allele frequencies of these two SNPs were comparable between AD and controls. On the other hand, the haplotype distribution of rs4756 and rs2228162 was different between AD and controls; being the AG haplotype associated with a decreased AD risk. In conclusion, selected SNPs in MZF-1 gene exert a minor effect on AD risk.
