Polymorphisms in the NLRP3 gene and risk of primary gouty arthritis.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between genetic variants in 17 tagSNPs of the NLRP3 gene and the susceptibility to primary gouty arthritis. A genotype-phenotype analysis of 480 primary gout and 480 control patients was performed. Samples from all the patients were collected from The Affiliated Hospital of Medical College (Qingdao, China). Seventeen tagSNPs of the NLRP3 gene were amplified using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and MassARRAY technology was used for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping. The genetic frequency of rs7512998 was significantly different between the gout and control patients (P<0.05), whereas no significant differences were identified for the remaining SNPs. The 17 SNPs conformed to the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) in the control group (P>0.05). The haplotype association among the 17 SNPs of the NLRP3 gene indicated that no individual SNP was significantly associated with primary gouty arthritis. CTATCAGCGCCCAGTGC was the most common haplotype in the case and control groups, with a frequency of 0.224 and 0.243, respectively. However, the odds ratios (ORs) of the 8 haplotypes were not identified to be significantly associated with gouty arthritis (P>0.05 for all the 8 haplotypes). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the association between SNPs of the NLRP3 gene and the risk of primary gouty arthritis, although no significant association was identified. Further clinical studies and functional analysis are required to explore the potential associations between NLRP3 gene polymorphisms and the risk of primary gouty arthritis.