title: No association between IL12B gene polymorphisms and Graves' disease in the Chinese population.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Graves' disease (GD) is one of the most common autoimmune thyroid disorders and has a striking characteristic of female preponderance.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The main objective of this study was to investigate whether IL12B gene polymorphisms were associated with either GD itself or with gender bias in GD.
  
  
  METHODS
  GD patients (151 males, 97 females) and 211 healthy control subjects without antithyroid autoantibodies or a family history of autoimmune disorders were recruited for this study. The G/C polymorphism (rs6887695) of the IL12B gene was analyzed using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism, and the deletion and insertion polymorphism (rs41292470) in the IL12B promoter was detected after polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis-silver staining method.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was no significant difference between GD patients and normal subjects, and no differences in frequencies of genotypes or alleles of either polymorphism between male and female GD subjects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that these IL12B gene polymorphisms were not associated with sex bias in GD and do not confer susceptibility to Graves' disease (GD) in the Chinese population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Endocrinology, First Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, PR China.
authors.forename: Shu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.forename: Grant
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Morahan
authors.forename: Bingyin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Shi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics*; D001323:Autoantibodies / Q000097:blood; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005787:Gene Frequency; D056726:Genetic Association Studies; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006111:Graves Disease / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D054643:INDEL Mutation; D053762:Interleukin-12 Subunit p40 / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D012737:Sex Factors; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D001323:Autoantibodies; C500879:IL12B protein, human; D053762:Interleukin-12 Subunit p40