Footprints of stress in vitiligo: Association of the 5-HTR2C rs6318 variant

Abstract

Abstract Vitiligo is a chronic autoimmune progressive dermatological disease and stress known to have impact on the development of vitiligo. However, the effect of serotonin has not been clearly explained for disease progression. Therefore, this study aimed to clarify stress induced 5-HTR2C rs6318 variant and its association with vitiligo pathogenesis. Study conducted with 108 vitiligo patients and 107 age-sex matched, unrelated healthy subjects as control group. Real Time-PCR analysis method was used for genotyping the 5-HTR2C variation. Genotype and allele frequencies considered for both control and patient groups. Genotype distributions for the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) were analyzed. Vitiligo-related risk measures of different genotype combinations examined. Genotype correlations of the variant also analyzed based on gender difference, age onset of vitiligo, Koebner phenomenon history, clinical subgroups, treatment types, presence of other autoimmune diseases, vitiligo presence in family members and other autoimmune diseases in relatives. No statistically significant difference in 5HT-R2C receptor genotypes and allele frequencies between patient and control has been found. Genotype frequencies were not in agreement with the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium in the patients’ group (p < 0.00001). Frequency of the risk allele (allele C) was not significantly different between the patient and control groups (p = 0.1392). However, in the clinical subgroup analysis, the risk allele presence detected significantly higher for early age onset (< 40 years) vitiligo development (p = 0.0365) and lower in Koebner phenomenon history (p = 0.0276). As a result, although there was no association between the 5-HTR2C variant rs6318 and vitiligo, the current results indicated that there is a strong association between the 5HTR2C rs6318 variant C allele and early age onset vitiligo development.