Evaluation of germline sequence variants within the promoter region of RANTES gene in a cohort of women with endometriosis from Spain

The RANTES (regulated upon activation normal T cells expressed and secreted) chemokine, is known to be expressed in endometriotic lesions in a concentration correlating with the severity of endometriosis. Since it has been widely demonstrated that endometriosis has a genetic basis, we postulated that the gene encoding RANTES could be a good candidate gene for the disease. We have used fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) technology to genotype and evaluate the role of the variants -403G-->A and -28C-->G, located within the promoter region of the gene, as susceptibility factors in a cohort of Spanish women with endometriosis. No differences have been found in the allelic frequencies of both variants nor in the haplotype/ genotype distribution between patients and controls. These data are consistent with the lack of association between these polymorphisms and endometriosis in our population. They do not exclude completely a possible role of other variants within RANTES gene in this pathology.