expression of basophil activation markers in pediatric asthma

background: asthma is very common in children and its diagnosis is based on clinical manifestations, which can be misdiagnosed as other respiratory diseases with similar signs and symptoms. objective: to analyze the expression of st2l and cd203c in the diagnosis of pediatric asthma. methods: basophils were purified from whole blood samples of patients and healthy controls using ficol-paque gradient and basophil isolation kit. rna extraction was done by rnx-plus solution and after synthesis of cdna, the gene expression was analyzed by means of real time pcr. results: patients expressed significantly higher levels of cd203c than healthy controls (p=0.01). although there was an increase in the transcription level of st2l gene in patients, the results were not statistically significant compared to those obtained from the healthy controls (p>0.05). a specificity of 60% and a sensitivity of 73% were foundusing roc curve for cd203c expression. patients with positive family history of asthma exhibited more cd203c and st2l expression (p