Background and Aims: Ficolins are proteins that bind to carbohydrates, act as opsonins and play an important role in innate immunity. Polymorphism in ficolin-3 gene (FCN3) can lead to complement deficiency and increase the risk of some disorders such as diabetes. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of FCN3+1637delC as a single nucleotide polymorphism in this gene in healthy and diabetic subjects of Iran.
Materials and Methods: Blood was taken from 36 diabetics and 37 healthy subjects who had referred to the Iranian Blood Transfusion Organization. Blood sugar was analyzed using a calorimetric method. After DNA extraction using salting out method, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was carried out and the restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method was accomplished using ApaI restriction enzyme. Consequently, the resulted fragments were evaluated using electrophoresis on 2% L-agarose gel.
Results: Evaluation of the results indicated that the heterozygote form of single-nucleotide polymorphism FCN3+1637delC was seen in three samples (8.1%) of the studied healthy subjects and in two samples (5.6%) of the diabetic individuals. Besides, the homozygous form of the mutation was not seen in the studied healthy and diabetic subjects.
Conclusions: Results of this study showed that FCN3 variant of single-nucleotide polymorphism FCN3+1637delC was not considered as a risk factor for type 2 diabetes mellitus in Iranian subjects.