The data showed that no statistically significant dif- ferences were found between the elderly and controls by comparing genotype distributions and allele fre- quencies of ) 1082 G⁄A IL-10 promoter and the ) 308 G⁄A TNF-a promoter SNPs. However, when gender ) was considered, the 1082 G⁄A IL-10 genotype and allele frequencies were significantly associated with longevity in men but not in women. This result is con- sistent with previous observations by Lio et al. (2003) on the Italian population. Gender has been shown to be a major variable in the genetics of longevity in dif- ferent populations. For example, Adiponectin, peroxi- some proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)gamma-2, IL-6 and Tyrosine Hydroxylase gene have been shown to be associated with longevity in men but not in women (Bonafe et al., 2001; De Luca et al., 2001; Barbieri et al., 2004; Atzmon et al., 2008). On the other hand, haemochromatosis, interferon-gamma and Apo C-I gene polymorphisms are associated with lon- gevity in women, but not in men (Galinsky et al., 1997; Lio et al., 2002a,c, 2003). This indicates that men and women might follow different pathways to longevity. The mechanisms that explain the gender effect on the pathway to longevity are still not known, however, gender differences in hormonal signalling pathways, immunity response, detoxification mecha- nisms and oxidative damage tolerance might account

Conclusion

This is the first report to investigate association of genetic loci and longevity in an Arabic population. The results of this study indicate that IL-10 ) 1082 G⁄A promoter polymorphism plays a role in men but not in women longevity whereas TNF-a ) 308 G⁄A promoter polymorphism plays no significant role in both men and women longevity in Jordanian popula- tion.

Acknowledgements

This work has been carried out with funds from the Faculty of Scientific Research in Jordan University of Science and Technology grant number 182⁄2007 to O. K. The authors thank Dr M. Al-Omari for his com- ments on the manuscript, and Mr E. S. Abdelhalim and Mr A. Abu-Wardeh for their technical help in the study.

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