Objective To identify an interaction between the interleukin-1 receptor antagonist gene polymorphism and risk of Al-zheimer’s disease. Methods The study included 117 healthy controls

85 patients with Alzheimer’s disease in a Northeastern Chinese popu-lation of Han nationality. Genotypes were determined by a polymerase chain reaction amplification of the intron 2 fragment

harbouring a variable number of short tandem nucleotide sequences. Amplification products were separated on a 2% agarose gel. Results The allele 2 frequency was 27% in healthy controls

and 21% in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Thus for all-ele 2 as well as for all other alleles

genotypes

or carriage rates

no significant differences compared with controls. Conclusions No association of interleukin-1 receptor antagonist gene polymorphism with Alzheimer’s disease was iden-tified in this population. It is also possible that the increased risk and disease modifying effects are caused by linkage disequ-ilibrium with other genomic variants in other nearby genes.