The role of CYP19A1 and ESR2 gene polymorphisms in female androgenetic alopecia in the Polish population

Introduction
Androgenetic alopecia is the most common type of non-cicatricial alopecia both in male and female patients. The mechanism that leads to hair loss is similar in both sexes, but the underlying cause, and especially the role of genes and sex hormones in the pathogenesis of the disease in women has not fully been explained as of yet. So far, a few attempts have been made to assess selected SNPs for CYP19A1 and ESR2 genes, but their results are not unequivocal and fully reproducible. Aim: To investigate the association of 13 CYP19A1 and 11 ESR2 gene SNPs with female androgenetic alopecia (FAGA) in a population of Polish patients, including some already genotyped SNPs of possible importance for FAGA pathophysiology in other populations.

Material and methods
Twenty-four genetic polymorphisms were analysed for the ESR2 and CYP19A1 genes in 117 patients with FAGA and 128 healthy subjects treated at the Department of Dermatology in Krakow.

Results
In the studied Polish population, none of the selected SNPs, frequently detected in the Caucasian population and linked with the transformation pathway of sex hormones, showed a significant association with FAGA.

Conclusions
Further studies into the genetic background of androgenetic alopecia are needed. Ethnic differences as well as the size of the studied population may be of great significance for the obtained results.