Background: Certain cytokine genotypes are associated with acute graft versus hos disease (aGVHD) after bone marrow transplantation (BMT). The present study aimed to determine existing association between TGF-ß1 codon 10 polymorphism and aGVHD after HLA-identical sibling BMT in the Iranian population.
Material/Methods: In a retrospective case-control study, 168 subjects including 84 Iranian HLA-identical sibling BMT donor/recipient pairs were recruited. All of the patients were affected by hematological malignancies (AML=39, ALL=23 and CML=22). PCR-SSP method was performed to determine TGF-ß1 codon 10 T/C polymorphism genotypes.
Results: The frequency of TGF-b1 codon 10 TT, TC and CC genotypes among all subjects were 26.8%, 33.3% and 39.9% respectively. Recipients with the T allele developed aGVHD signifi cantly less than those without the T allele (odds ratio =0.334, P=0.026).
Conclusions: Genetic background of TGF-ß1 may be involved as a protective factor in the development of aGVHD in HLA-matched sibling BMT in Iranian population. Moreover, this finding may indicate that the genetic markers in Iranians are, at least to some extent, linked to distinct genetic event from Japanese.

Keywords: aGVHD, BMT, cytokine gene polymorphism, SNP, TGF-β1