Reduction in angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) activity has been shown to attenuate pancreatic stellate cell activation and pancreatic fibrosis and suggested as a potential treatment for chronic pancreatitis. The ACE gene insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism in intron 16 accounts for nearly half the variation in serum ACE levels. This study determined the frequency of the I/D polymorphism in patients with acute and chronic pancreatitis.
In total, 887 patients (346 with alcoholic, 443 with nonalcoholic, and 98 with acute pancreatitis) were enrolled, and were compared with 1294 healthy controls. Genotyping of the I/D polymorphism was performed by PCR or melting curve analyses.
No significant differences were found in the prevalence of the ACE-deletion genotype frequencies when patients with alcoholic (27.5%), nonalcoholic (26.4%), and acute pancreatitis (32.7%) were compared with controls (26.9%). Likewise, allele frequencies of the ACE deletion polymorphism were not significantly different in patients with alcoholic (53.8%), nonalcoholic (50.6%), and acute pancreatitis (54.1%) and controls (52.7%).
The I/D polymorphism of the ACE gene was not found to be associated with acute and chronic pancreatitis.