Papers of the Week

Several papers have been published suggesting a probable role of inflammatory factors in the etiopathogenesis of migraine. In this study, we investigated the possible association between common variants in the genes (both genes, which are closely related, encode proteins involved in inflammatory and autoimmune responses) in the risk of migraine in a cohort of Caucasian Spanish participants. For this purpose, the frequencies of rs1922452, rs951818, and rs870849 genotypes and allelic variants, using a specific -based qPCR assay, were assessed in 290 patients diagnosed with migraine and in 300 healthy controls. The relationship of these variables with several clinical features of migraine was also analyzed. The frequencies of the analyzed genotypes did not differ significantly between the two study groups and were not related to the sex, age at onset of migraine, family history of migraine, presence or absence of aura, or the triggering effect of ethanol on migraine episodes. These results suggest a lack of association between common variants in the genes and the risk of developing migraine in the Caucasian Spanish population.