Abstract
Few association studies on vitamin A and genetic polymorphism have been conducted so far, even though brilliant success has been achieved in translational researches on vitamin D receptor or methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase gene polymorphism. Recently, a couple of epoch-making papers have been published in vitamin A and genetic polymorphism field: 1) a common intronic single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) (rs12591551 A/C) of the aldehyde dehydrogenase 1A2 (ALDH1A2) gene was shown to be associated with individual variations of retinoic acid concentrations in umbilical cord blood, and 2) two common intronic SNPs (rs6800566, rs13070407) of the retinoic acid receptor β (RARβ) gene were shown to be associated with individual variations of adaptive immune responses to measles vaccine. In this mini-review, these 2 pioneering works are introduced and discussed briefly.
