Method: DNA samples collected from unrelated children receiving dental treatment at the Pedodontics clinics of Istanbul University were used: 102 children had caries (91 with 4 or more affected tooth surfaces) and 95 children were caries-free. SNPs were genotyped by real-time polymerase chain reaction using the Taqman method. Chi-Square and Fisher’s exact tests were performed to determine if genotypic variants were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and associated with varying caries experience, as tested with dmft and dmfs score cutoffs of 4, 6, 8, and 10.
Result: There was no deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Analysis showed no significant differences in genotype and allele frequencies between cases and controls for the rs11362 and rs1800972 SNP variants in beta-defensin 1 and various caries experiences.
Conclusion: Beta-defensin 1 variants rs11362 and rs180072 did not show statistically significant association with caries experience in the primary dentition of the studied population. This work is supported by NIH Grant R01-DE18914.