Angiotensin-converting enzyme insertion/deletion polymorphism in patients with acute and chronic pancreatitis.
BACKGROUND
Reduction in angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) activity has been shown to attenuate pancreatic stellate cell activation and pancreatic fibrosis and suggested as a potential treatment for chronic pancreatitis. The ACE gene insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism in intron 16 accounts for nearly half the variation in serum ACE levels. This study determined the frequency of the I/D polymorphism in patients with acute and chronic pancreatitis.


METHODS
In total, 887 patients (346 with alcoholic, 443 with nonalcoholic, and 98 with acute pancreatitis) were enrolled, and were compared with 1294 healthy controls. Genotyping of the I/D polymorphism was performed by PCR or melting curve analyses.


RESULTS
No significant differences were found in the prevalence of the ACE-deletion genotype frequencies when patients with alcoholic (27.5%), nonalcoholic (26.4%), and acute pancreatitis (32.7%) were compared with controls (26.9%). Likewise, allele frequencies of the ACE deletion polymorphism were not significantly different in patients with alcoholic (53.8%), nonalcoholic (50.6%), and acute pancreatitis (54.1%) and controls (52.7%).


CONCLUSIONS
The I/D polymorphism of the ACE gene was not found to be associated with acute and chronic pancreatitis.
Hucl
Tomas
T
Department of Medicine II (Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Infectious Diseases), University of Heidelberg, Mannheim D-68167, Germany.
Kylanpää
Marja-Leena
ML
Künzli
Beat
B
Witt
Heiko
H
Lempinen
Marko
M
Schneider
Alexander
A
Kemppainen
Esko
E
Löhr
Matthias
M
Haas
Stephan L
SL
Friess
Helmut
H
Ockenga
Johann
J
Rosendahl
Jonas
J
Schulz
Hans-Ulrich
HU
Gress
Thomas
T
Singer
Manfred V
MV
Pfützer
Roland H
RH
D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004198:Disease Susceptibility; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland; D017353:Gene Deletion; D005838:Genotype; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016254:Mutagenesis, Insertional / Q000235:genetics*; D010195:Pancreatitis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D050500:Pancreatitis, Chronic / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D007703:Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D055815:Young Adult
D007703:Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A