Sepideh Hashemi, Payam Saadat, Tahmineh Gorgani-Firouzjaee, Elaheh Ferdosi-Shahandashti, Jalal Jafarzadeh
Parasitology research 2024 Feb 22Toxoplasma gondii is an intracellular protozoan parasite that causes neuroinflammation in the brain and a constant need for peripheral leukocyte migration. Matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9) can play a major role in this neuroinflammation and be implicated in some neurological disorders, such as migraines. Therefore, the genetic polymorphism evaluation of MMP-9 in migraine patients with T. gondii infection was performed. One hundred fourteen migraine patients and 114 healthy controls were evaluated for the presence of anti-Toxoplasma IgG antibodies. Seventy-two migraine patients and 40 healthy controls were randomly selected for assessment of the MMP 9-1562C/T genetic polymorphism. In the preliminary examination, 61 (53.5%) migraine patients and 43 (37.3%) healthy controls were positive for IgG antibodies, with a significant association between T. gondii seropositivity and migraine (OR = 1.90; 95% CI = 1.21-3.223; P = 0.012). Genetic distribution for the polymorphism was not in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in cases but showed no significant variation in control groups (P = 0.03 and P = 0.180, respectively). A significant preponderance of the CT + TT genotype was found in migraine subjects compared to controls (P = 0.042) (OR, 1.77, CI, 1.013-2.229). The homozygote muted allele TT had a higher rate in migraine patients (6.9%). There were significant differences in CT + TT genotype between T. gondii positive and negative migraine patients (P = 0.024), but T allele frequencies had no significant variation (OR 1.7 CI, 1.084-2.44 and 0.42 CI, 0.044-3.97, respectively). In conclusion, the results may provide the first evidence for the involvement of the MMP-9 gene polymorphism in the mechanism of migraine pathology following Toxoplasma infection. © 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
Sepideh Hashemi, Payam Saadat, Tahmineh Gorgani-Firouzjaee, Elaheh Ferdosi-Shahandashti, Jalal Jafarzadeh. Potential genetic polymorphism of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 in Iranian migraine patients with Toxoplasma gondii infection. Parasitology research. 2024 Feb 22;123(2):140
PMID: 38386175
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