Correlation between Gingival Expression of STAT1 and Chronic Periodontitis

Background: Periodontal disease is a most common inflammatory disease of periodontium. A wide variety of cytokines, chemokines and receptors are synthesized by gingival fibroblasts and inflammatory cells. Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription-1 (STAT)-1 is a transcription factor that plays a key role in the process of intracellular signal transduction through the JAK-STAT pathway in response to inflammatory cytokines, Therefore plays an important role in inflammatory diseases. So the aim of this study was to determine the correlation between STAT1 gingival gene expression and chronic periodontitis. Materials and Methods: For this purpose, gingival tissue sample were collected from 20 individuals with clinically healthy gingiva and 25 patients with moderate to severe chronic periodontitis. After homogenizing the gingival tissues, RNA was extracted by RNA isolation kit. After synthesis of cDNA, expression of STAT1 was evaluated by Real-time PCR. Results: Higher expression of STAT1 was found in chronic periodontitis in comparison to clinically healthy gingiva (P<0.001). Conclusion: In this study, STAT1 mRNA was significantly up-regulated in chronic periodontitis tissues as compared to healthy control tissues. These results suggest that the modulation of STAT1 expression may play an important role in the pathogenesis of the periodontal inflammatory process.