Transcriptionally Less Active Prodynorphin Promoter Alleles are Associated with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: A Case-Control Study and Meta-Analysis

We performed an association study in a population of patients with Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) with Hippocampal Sclerosis (MTEHS) together with a systematic revision of the literature to investigate the role of transcriptionally less active polymorphic alleles of Prodynorphin (PDYN) gene in this pathology. We included 102 patients with a diagnosis of MTEHS and 86 healthy controls. The positive antecedent of family history for epileptic events defined a TLE subgroup with familial predisposition for epileptic disorders. The PDYN promoter polymorphism was genotyped by means of a PCR assay. For meta-analysis, we identified case-control association studies between TLE and PDYN by searching PUBMED. The pooled OR was estimated using a fixed effects model under dominant and co-dominant heredity models. No differences in genotypic and allelic frequencies were found between cases and controls (p = 0.61) in our population, neither in the whole cohort nor in the analysis limited to TLE with familial predisposition (p = 0.71). The Meta-Analysis included 591 TLE patients and 1117 healthy controls. We found an association between L allele (p = 0.003; OR = 1.40; IC 95 = 1.12–1.74) and a modestly higher risk to develop TLE in the group of patients with familial predisposition. Therefore, functional allelic variants in the PDYN promoter might modify the risk to develop TLE in subjects with familial predisposition.