This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2350/7/48[Background] Several lines of evidence suggest that chemokines and cytokines play an important role in the inflammatory development and progression of systemic lupus erythematosus. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relevance of functional genetic variations of RANTES, IL-8, IL-1α, and MCP-1 for systemic lupus erythematosus.[Methods] The study was conducted on 500 SLE patients and 481 ethnically matched healthy controls. Genotyping of polymorphisms in the RANTES, IL-8, IL-1α, and MCP-1 genes were performed using a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) system with pre-developed TaqMan allelic discrimination assay.[Results] No significant differences between SLE patients and healthy controls were observed when comparing genotype, allele or haplotype frequencies of the RANTES, IL-8, IL-1α, and MCP-1 polymorphisms. In addition, no evidence for association with clinical sub-features of SLE was found.[Conclusion] These results suggest that the tested functional variation of RANTES, IL-8, IL-1α, and MCP-1 genes do not confer a relevant role in the susceptibility or severity of SLE in the Spanish population.This work was supported by grant SAF03-3460 from Plan Nacional de I+D+I, and in part by the Junta de Andalucía, grupo CTS-180. We thank Sasha Zhernakova for her excellent technical assistance.Peer reviewed