Association of Nucleotide-binding Oligomerization Domain Containing 1 (NOD1) Haplotypes and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms with Crohnʹs Disease in Egyptian Patients

The inflammatory bowel disease (IBDS), Crohnʹs disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are common relapsing conditions characterized by both gastrointestinal and systemic manifestations and are responsible for significant morbidity in adults and children. The etiology of IBD is unknown but the condition seems to be the result of a combination of environmental, genetic, and immunologic factors. NOD1 is a cytosolic protein and a member of a family of proteins known as the NLR/Nod (caterpillar family). This protein family also includes a closely related protein NOD2. Both NOD1 and NOD2 are thought to function in inflammation, innate and adaptive immunity as well as in a variety of other processes that determine the balance between health and disease. In this study we have analyzed a SNP in the NOD1 gene to detect polymorphisms in Egyptian patients with crohnʹs disease (CD) to evaluate the contribution of this gene in genetic susceptibility of the disease. The gene (NOD1) was analyzed by polymerase chain reading, restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique in 42 patients with crohnʹs disease and 40 age matched and gender matched healthy doners. The present study has demonstrated that the heterozygous/homozygous carriages of NOD1 E266k (G796A) genotypes showed insignificant differences in Egyptian patients with CD compared to healthy ones. There were also no significant association between the different genotypes and the demographic data on the patients or the clinical characteristics of CD. Also no significant differences were detected concerning the allele frequencies (p>0.05). Taken together, these data may suggest that NOD1 plays a variable role in different populations, which could depend upon environmental and dietary factors as they change from one race to the other and from society to another