ccl22 16c/a genetic variation is not associated with breast carcinoma in southern iranian population

background: ccl22/mdc is a cc chemokine with a critical role in regulation of the immune balance in physiological condition. ccl22/ccr-4 ligation has been documented to participate in the migration of regulatory t (treg) cells and th2 lymphocytes to the site of breast tumors; circumstances that are known to be associated with poor prognosis. objective: to investigate the association of a single nucleotide polymorphism (snp) in ccl22 gene; 16c/a (rs4359426; asp2ala), with susceptibility to breast cancer in a sample of iranian population. methods: 161 patients with pathologically confirmed breast carcinoma (mean age 49.3 ± 11.5 yrs) and 178 agematched healthy women (mean age: 49.3 ± 12.9 yrs) were studied. ccl22 genotypes were investigated by the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (pcr-rflp) method. data was verified by direct automated sequencing. arlequin analysis showed no deviation from hardy-weinberg equilibrium. results: the most frequent genotype in both patient and control groups was wild type cc genotype with frequency of 146 out of 161 (90.7%) among patients and 153 out of 178 (86.0%) in control group (p=0.24). the frequency of ca genotype was 15 (9.3%) and 23 (12.9%) in patients and controls, respectively (p=0.38). no aa genotype was observed among patients but this genotype was observed with the frequency of 2 out of 178 (1.1%) in control subjects. the minor allele frequency (maf) was 0.07 in the population. conclusion: no correlation was found between the investigated genotypes and clinicopathological characteristics of the patients. conclusively, results of this investigation do not support the association of 16c/a snp (rs4359426; asp2ala) in ccl22 gene with susceptibility to, and progression of, breast cancer in iranian population.