Abstract
Granjeiro JM, Antunes LS, Küchler EC, Tannure PN, Costa MC, Gouvêa CV, Olej B. BMP4 polymorphism is associated with nonsyndromic oral cleft in a Brazilian population. Cleft Palate Craniofac J. 2013;50:633–638.
The recent report on “BMP4 Polymorphism and Nonsyndromic Oral Cleft in a Brazilian Population” is very interesting. Granjeiro et al. concluded that “the risk of nonsyndromic oral clefts may be influenced by variation in the BMP4 gene.“ Indeed, there are many concerns on this genetic study. First, the single gene study might not lead to the conclusion on association between polymorphism and oral cleft. There are many other possible genes leading to cleft that are not included in the present study. The other polymorphisms to be mentioned and further studied include, for example, TGFA/Taq I polymorphism (Souza et al., 2012) and small ubiquitin-related modifier-1 gene polymorphism (Guo et al., 2012). Second, the imbalance between numbers of case and control might imply the selection bias. Finally, the effect of environmental factors should not be overlooked (Souza et al., 2012).