Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 polymorphisms in Korean patients with Behcet's disease

Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) is expressed on vascular endothelial cells and its expression increases during the inflammatory response in patients with active Behcet's disease (BD). The ICAM1 gene mutations are associated with BD in Caucasians, but clinical features of the mutation phenotype are unknown. We analyzed ICAM1 polymorphisms in Korean BD patients to determine if there was an association between particular mutations and clinical symptoms. The prevalence of ICAM1R241G and ICAM1K469E polymorphisms was determined among 197 patients with BD and 248 healthy controls using BsrG1 and BsfU1 PCR-RFLP. The frequency of both genotypes ICAM1469*K/*E and ICAM1469*E/*E was significantly higher in BD patients compared with controls (66.0% vs 52.4%, p=0.004, OR=1.28, 95% CI 1.08-1.50) and the allele frequency of ICAM1469*E was higher in patients with skin lesions (0.41), genital ulcers (0.41), vasculitis (0.43), ocular lesions (0.41) and arthritis (0.39) than in controls (0.31). Only one heterozygote, ICAM1241G/R, was detected in BD patients but the ICAM1241*R mutation was not found in any of the 248 healthy controls. These results show that the ICAM1 mutation is associated with BD susceptibility, and is another genetic risk factor for BD among the Korean population.