Identification of Polymorphisms in Thymic Stromal Lymphopoietin (TSLP) Gene and Their Association with Allergic Rhinitis

Dendritic cell (DC) activator, thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) induces DCs to produce Th2-attracting chemokines, causing differentiation of CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells into effector cells. The differentiated cells are characterized by a typical pro-allergic phenotype. In this study, we identified four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and one variation site (g.-305delT) from the results of scanned human TSLP gene. The SNPs are as following: g.-1914A > G and g.-847C > T in promoter, g.-82C> T in 5' UTR and g.1117C> T in intron 2. We also evaluated the association of genotype and allele frequencies of these SNPs between non-allergic rhinitis controls and allergic rhinitis patients. We further investigated possible correlations between each genotype with serum total IgE levels and peripheral blood eosinophil counts in allergic rhinitis patients. The frequencies of haplotype constructed by these SNPs between these two groups were also compared. Our results demonstrate the two SNPs (g.-1914A > G and g.-847C> T) were associated with susceptibility of allergic rhinitis (P= 0.006 and P= 0.015 respectively), however, serum total IgE levels were not significantly related with the SNPs.