Lack of association between cellular repressor of E1A-stimulated genes (GREG) polymorphisms and coronary artery disease in the Han population of North China

Background: Phenotypic switching of smooth muscle cells (SMCs) plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerotic lesions such as coronary artery disease (CAD). Accumulating evidence demonstrates that a cellular repressor of E1A-stimulated genes (CREG) plays a role in the maintenance of the mature phenotype of vascular SMCs. We assessed the possible association between CREG and CAD in the Han population of North China. Methods: The promoter region of CREG by direct sequencing was conducted in 48 subjects. Then SNP rs2995073 and another 4 tagSNPs (rs4657669, rs3767443, rs16859185, and rs3753921) were selected for the association study. All five selected SNPs were determined in 1161 patients with angiographically proven CAD and 960 controls with normal coronary angiograms to investigate the possible involvement of CREG in CAD. Results: Genotype frequencies of the 5 polymorphisms were similarly distributed between CAD group and controls (P>0.05). Further haplotype analysis also found no significant differences in the distributions between CAD group and controls (P>0.05). Conclusion: This study did not show an association between common variants of CREG and CAD in the northern Chinese Han population. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.