Background and objective: Approximately 50 million people worldwide (1% of the world's population) suffer from epilepsy. Among 700 thousand people with epilepsy in Iran, 20% have refractory epilepsy. Accumulation of leukocytes in patients' brain parenchyma is thought to be related to different types of epilepsy. Recent clinical observations suggest that therapeutic strategies that interfere with leukocytes or cause them to migrate may have therapeutic efficacy in epilepsy. The aim of this study was to identify treatment-resistant patients, and investigate the association between polymorphism rs1024611 in CCL2 gene and drug resistance in patients with epilepsy in Isfahan, Iran. Methods: Blood samples were taken from 50 patients with intractable epilepsy (case group) and 50 drug-responsive patients with epilepsy (control group). Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood by salting out method. Specific primers were designed by Oligo 7 software to investigate polymorphism rs1024611 using PCR-RFLP. The preliminary results for a number of samples were confirmed by sequencing. Results: The results of this study showed that there was a significant relationship between intractable epilepsy and presence of C allele. Conclusion: Similar to previous study, we found a significant association between CCL2 gene polymorphism and drug-resistant epilepsy.

Background: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a functional gastrointestinal disorder characterized by altered bowel habits and abdominal pain in the absence of a recognizable structural anomaly. The pathogenesis of IBS has been associated with inflammation and the expression of pro-inflammatory chemokines, such as CCL2 and CCL16. Our study aimed to investigate the relationship between the serum levels of CCL2 and CCL16 and IBS. Additionally, we examined how serum levels of these chemokines relate to IBS subtypes. Methods: Patients with IBS diagnosed according to the Rome III criteria participated in this study (n= 96). Healthy individuals with no history of allergic, autoimmune, chronic or active gastrointestinal infectious diseases were used as controls (n= 44). The serum levels of CCL2 and CCL16 was measured via enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results: A significant decrease in the serum levels of CCL16 and CCL2 was observed in the patients with IBS. Additionally, the serum levels of CCL16 in IBS patients with diarrhea (D-IBS) was significantly higher than those with the mixed IBS (M-IBS) subtype. Conclusions: The significant increase in the serum levels of CCL-16 in patients with D-IBS compared to patients with M-IBS suggests that CCL-16 may be used as an immunological biomarker to differentiate between these two subtypes.

Background: Chemokines are proinflammatory cytokines that play key roles in development of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Chemokine-induced recruitment of peripheral leucocytes to tissues is a crucial step in the CVD progression. CC chemokines ligand 5, 2 (CCL5 and CCL2), have been characterized as emerging in-flammatory biomarkers of atherosclerotic CVD. The aim of this study was to find out whether genetic poly-morphisms of CCL5-403 G>A (rs2107538) and CCL2 – 927 G>C, (rs3760396) were associated with the risk of CVD. Methods: In this case-control study, 500 Iranian individuals including 250 CVD patients and 250 healthy sub-jects as the control group participated in 2017. Genotyping of CCL5-403 G>A and CCL2 – 927 G>C poly-morphisms were executed using Tetra-ARMS PCR method. Results: At genotypic level both CCL5-403 G>A and CCL2 – 927 G>C polymorphisms were not associated with the risk of CVD (P>0. 05), even after adjustment by age, sex, race, and history of hypertension, DM and smoking. However, the CCL2 – 927 C allele was associated with an increased risk of CVD (OR=1. 42, P=0. 050) with a higher prevalence in CVD patient than in controls (17% vs. 12%). Moreover, the haplotype analysis revealed that CCL5/CCL2 haplotype (G/C) was a risk factor for CVD (OR=2. 13, P=0. 001), and that carriers of this haplotype were at 2. 13-fold higher risk of CVD than subjects with G/G haplotype. Conclusion: CCL2 – 927 C variant and CCL5/CCL2 haplotype (G/C) were associated with susceptibility to CVD, and were risk factors for CVD in our population but more studies with large sample size are recom-mended.