Figure 1

MMP-9 gene structure indicating all 13 exons, the position of frequent SNPs (MAF > 0.1) and linkage disequilibrium (r ² plot) based on HapMap data (CEPH population, n = 90). ¹⁾ SNP rs3918241 is the tagging SNP (R² > 0.8) for rs2274755, rs2236416, rs2274756, rs3918261 and rs3818270. ²⁾ rs2664538 is the tagging SNP for rs3918249. ³⁾ rs3918256 is the tagging SNP for C1945T. ⁴⁾ rs3787268 was not in LD with other polymorphisms. Positions based on NCBI sequence database, accession number AL162458.