Objective To verify the association of a disintegrin and metalloproteinase domain 33 (ADAM33) polymorphisms in childhood asthma susceptibility and severity in patients with moderate and severe asthma.Methods A total of 144 controls and 110 asthmatic patients were recruited for this hospitalbased case-control study.Two polymorphic sites (V4,T2) were genotyped using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method.The gene-gene interactions were analyzed with the multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) software.Results The allele frequencies of three SNPs (V4,T2) of ADAM33 in childhood asthma group were significantly higher than control group (P ＜ 0.01,OR =2.36 ～ 2.96,95％ CI:1.56-1.78 ～ 3.56-4.94).For the SNPs V4,GC genotype frequencies of both moderate and severe groups were significantly higher from the control group (P ＜ 0.05) ; the CC genotype frequencies in severe group were significantly higher than control group (P ＜ 0.05) ; the genotype GA of T2 locus in severe group and AA genotype frequencies in moderate group were significantly higher than control group (P ＜0.01 ～0.05) ; there were no significant differences for both allele and genotype frequencies of S2 locus between the childhood asthma and control group (P ＞ 0.05).By MDR analysis,the best interaction model was the four-factor model that the V4,T2 genotypes were the subgroup to predict asthma risk.Conclusions Our results highlight the role of ADAM33 as a susceptibility gene for childhood asthma,and the interactions among ADAM33 V4 and T2 are also associated with childhood asthma.

AIM: To induce rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSC) into cardiomyocytes and investigate the influence of serum coming from acute myocardial infarction (AMI) rat on the procedure. METHODS: The passage 3 BMSC were divided into six groups: groupⅠwas control group; groupⅡwas induced with 5-azacytidine; group Ⅲ was induced with 5-azacytidine and serum from AMI rat; group Ⅳ was induced with 5-azacytidine and serum from normal rat; group V and group Ⅵ were induced with serum from AMI rat or normal rat. The cardiac troponin T, GATA-4 and desmin were detected 30 days after induction. RESULTS: After inducing by 5-azacytidine, 5-azacytidine and two kinds of serum, some cells in the three groups differentiated into cardiac like cells. The expressions of cardiac troponin T, GATA-4 and desmin were positive in cells differentiated from BMSC. The troponin T expression in control group and group inducing by AMI serum alone were negative but GATA-4 and desmin expressed weakly. Some cells induced with 5-azacytidine and serum were slowly beating 2 weeks after induction, but the cells induced with 5-azacytidine alone was not beating.CONCLUSION: Serum from AMI can not induce BMSC to differentiate into cardiomyocytes, but it promotes BMSC differentiate into cardiomyocytes induced by 5-azacytidine and facilitate the differentiated cells to mature.