Study of peripheral blood multidrug resistance-associated protein 1 expression of children intractable epilepsy.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to analyze multidrug resistance-associated protein 1 (MRP1) expression of peripheral blood of children intractable epilepsy. METHODS: Sixty children with epilepsy admitted to outpatient and inpatient services of Xuzhou Children's Hospital between November 2010 and October 2011 were divided into a refractory epilepsy group and a drug-controlled epilepsy group, with 30 cases each. Thirty healthy children who went to the hospital in the same year for health examination were enrolled as a control group. Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction and Western blot method were used to determine peripheral blood MRP1 level, mRNA, and protein content of the 3 groups. RESULTS: MRP1 expression in the refractory epilepsy group was significantly higher than those of the epilepsy group with good drug control and of the control group. All differences had statistical significance (P<0.05), except for the comparison between the drug-controlled epilepsy group and the control group (P>0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Peripheral blood MRP1 expression in patients with refractory epilepsy increases.