Association of MDR1 Gene Polymorphism in Patients With Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Objective: 30-40% of patients with epilepsy have resistance to medical treatment. The major genetic mechanism postulated to underlie this resistance known as Multidrug resistance gene 1 (MDR1), transports the drugs from intracellular to extracellular area. Methods: 103 temporal lobe epilepsy patients' (59 of the patients had mesial temporal sclerosis and 44 patients had cryptogenic etiology) and 174 healthy controls' samples were evaluated for MDR1 gene (C3435T) polymorphism by polimerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphisms. Results: In all patients and TLE patients without MTS, CT genotype was found to be lower than that of the control group (p=0,004 ve p=0,008). CT genotype was statistically lower in the group without MTS than the group with MTS (p=0,0008). It is noted that the patients with a history of status epilepticus had significantly higher MDR1 gene TT genotype (p=0,027). There was no correlation between other clinical features and MDR1 genotype. Conclusions: Despite the difference of heterozygote CT genotype frequency in patient and control populations, no correlation between clinical features and MDR1 genotype was found. This data may show diverse genetic background of different populations. Studies of mutation analysis will play an important role to understand the pathophysiology of this disease.