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Background: We confirmed that the filaggrin gene mutation c.3321delA is associated with atopic dermatitis in our previous genome wide association study of the Chinese Han population. c.3321delA is the most common filaggrin gene mutation in Chinese atopic dermatitis patients but is not present in European populations. Objective: To investigate the genetic model for the c.3321delA mutation and to determine the correlation between c.3321delA and atopic dermatitis clinical phenotypes in the Chinese Han population. Method: The filaggrin gene mutation c.3321delA was sequenced in 1,080 atopic dermatitis patients and 908 controls from the Chinese population. The χ2 test, ANOVA,nonparametric tests and logistic regression were used to investigate the relationship between the c.3321delA genotype and atopic dermatitis clinical phenotypes in the Chinese Han population. Results: Analyses of the genetic model revealed that the additive model best described the c.3321delA mutation (P = 3.09E-11, OR = 3.43, 95%CI = 2.38–4.96). Stratified analyses showed that the c.3321delA allele frequency distribution is significantly associated with concomitant skin xerosis (P = 1.68E-03, OR = 2.13,95%CI = 1.32–3.46), palmar hyperlinearity (P = 3.64E-17, OR = 4.0,95%CI = 2.86–5.70), white dermatographism (P = 4.25E-03, OR = 1.82,95%CI = 1.22–2.71), food intolerance (P = 1.51E-03, OR = 1.76,95%CI = 1.23–2.50) and disease severity ( P = 9.67E-05). Conclusion: Our study indicates that the filaggrin gene mutation c.3321delA is associated with clinical phenotypes of atopic dermatitis in the Chinese Han population, which might help us gain a better understanding on the pathogenesis of atopic dermatitis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psoriasis is a common immune-mediated inflammatory skin disease with strong genetic components, in which the IL23/Th17 pathway has been implicated. To explore the effective role in psoriasis, we genotyped five single nucleotide polymorphisms in genes related to IL23/Th17 pathway in 14,929 Han Chinese samples. A Bonferroni-corrected significant single-variant association was identified between rs1512970 within IL21 (odds ratio (OR) = 1.07, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 1.02-1.13, P = 4.94 × 10). We failed to validate rs744166 (OR = 1.06, 95 % CI = 1.01-1.11, P = 1.52 × 10) and other three SNPs ( P = 2.48 × 10 ∼ 1.27 × 10) to meet the single-variant association significance threshold. However, we found that their combined effect substantially contributed to the risk of psoriasis in our sample ( P = 3.91 × 10) and the highest score group conferred the largest risk effect size (OR = 1.22, 95 % CI = 1.11-1.34, P = 1.85 × 10). Our results implicate the ethnic heterogeneity in the susceptibility of psoriasis and suggest common variants with weak effect in IL23/Th17 pathway, which do not show significance in conventional single-variant association study, may contribute to the risk of psoriasis. This study sheds light on the important role of IL23/Th17 pathway in the susceptibility of psoriasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Androgenetic alopecia (AGA) is a well-characterized type of progressive hair loss commonly seen in men, with different prevalences in different ethnic populations. It is generally considered to be a polygenic heritable trait. Several susceptibility genes/loci, such as AR/EDA2R, HDAC9 and 20p11, have been identified as being involved in its development in European populations. In this study, we aim to validate whether these loci are also associated with AGA in the Chinese Han population. Methods: We genotyped 16 previously reported single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with 445 AGA cases and 546 healthy controls using the Sequenom iPlex platform. The trend test was used to evaluate the association between these loci and AGA in the Chinese Han population. Conservatively accounting for multiple testing by the Bonferroni correction, the threshold for statistical significance was P ≤3.13×10−3. Results: We identified that 5 SNPs at 20p11 were significantly associated with AGA in the Chinese Han population (1.84×10−11≤P≤2.10×10−6). Conclusions: This study validated, for the first time, that 20p11 also confers risk for AGA in the Chinese Han population and implicated the potential common genetic factors for AGA shared by both Chinese and European populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]