RESUMO
Graves' disease (GD) is a common autoimmune disease mainly affecting the thyroid. However, the correlation between the development of GD and HSP70 alleles has not been reported in the Chinese population. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the association between HSP70 polymorphisms and GD in the Chinese population. A total of 153 patients with GD treated at the Yan'an Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University between October 2010 and August 2013 were enrolled in this study; one hundred and twenty healthy volunteers were included in the control group. HSP70 polymorphisms at positions HSP70-1 +190, HSP70-2 +1267, and HSP70-hom +2437 were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism. The distribution of the HSP70-2 +1267 GG genotype allele frequencies among GD and control subjects differed significantly (χ(2) = 20.40, P < 0.001; χ(2) = 18.18, P < 0.001). The G allele of HSP70-2 +1267 (Odds ratio = 0.455, 95% confidence interval: 0.315-0.655) conferred a higher risk of developing GD than the A allele. We observed no significant differences in the allelic frequencies of HSP70-1 +190 and HSP70-hom +2437. Therefore, the HSP70-2 +1267 GG genotype and the G allele may increase the risk of GD in Chinese subjects. The results of this study may be useful in identifying patients with increased risk of GD, and offer useful reference data for targeted gene therapy of GD in the future.