Abstract: Objective: To determine the association of TNF-αsingle nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) and vitiligo in the patients of Uygur nationality in China. Methods: The aim gene fragment extracted from the peripheral blood DNA of 316 uygur patients with vitiligo and 330 uygur healthy controls. Three loci polymorphisms rs1799964, rs1800630, rs1799724 in TNF-αpromoter were detected by the sequencing method. Results: There was no significant differences in the frequency of rs1799964, rs1800630 and rs1799724 between the patients and controls (P＞0.05). There were significant differences in the rs1799724 T allele frequency between the patients with early-onset and late-onset among the patients with?and without?family history (Ps<0.05). Conclusion: TNF-α promoter rs179972a SNP may be associated with vitiligo in Chinese uygur.

Key words: vitiligo, tumor necrosis factor - a, single nucleotide polymorphism, promoter