Prevalence of Genetic Polymorphisms ABCB1 / C3435T in Patients with Epilepsy in the Population of Fars Province

ABCB1/C3435T gene polymorphism encodes a drug transporter named P-glycoprotein Inhibition which has role in sending xenobiotic outsidethe cells and therefore affects the plasma level of drugs. In this study the frequency of ABCB1/C3435T polymorphism was compared between the epileptic patients and control group. Also, resistance to antiepileptic drugs (AED) was evaluated in different polymorphisms of this gene. Material and Methods: At first, DNA was extracted from blood samples of patients and healthy individuals. Polymorphism of ABCB1/C3435T gene was analyzed in a group of patients (n = 50) and healthy population (n = 100) by PCR and RFLP techniques .The frequency of different polymorphism of TT, TC, CC and T, C alleles compared between the patients and control group using SPSS, chi squaretest and independent T test. Also, association between different polymorphisms of this gene (TT, TC and CC) and response to AEDs was evaluated by Pearson chisquare test. Results: Of total 50 patients in this study, 20 % had TT, 64% had TC and 16% had CC genotypeand in the control group (n=100) the result were 28% TT, 52% TC and 20% has CC genotype. We found no statistically significant difference in the genotypic distribution between patients and controls (p-value: 0.371). Also, there was no significant difference betweenincidence of epilepsy and C, T alleles in both patient and control groups (p-value 0.743). An association was observed between TC genotype and response to AED (p-value 0.036). Conclusion: Following the obtained results, there is no significant difference in frequency of ABCB1-C3435T polymorphisms between patients and control group, but 42% of patients with TC genotype had response to AED significantly, which can show that C and T alleles may boost each other’s effect in order to improve responsiveness to AED in epileptic patients.