DNA polymorphisms and haplotypes of apolipoprotein A5's attribution to the plasma triglyceride levels in Koreans

Purpose: Recent studies using human and mice reported that apolipoprotein A-V (APOA5) gene plays an important role in controlling triglyceride (TG) concentrations. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the correlation between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and haplotypes in the APOA5 gene and TG in subjects and to search for possible associations of the APOA5 gene variants and common haplotypes with hypertriglyceridemia (HTG). Materials and Methods: We examined the case-control subjects including 100 HTG patients and 243 unrelated healthy. control. The genes were screened for SNPs by direct sequencing in 48 genetically unrelated individuals. Six SNPs (-1390C>T, -1020G>A, -3A>G, V150M, G182C and 1259T>C) were genotyped in case and control populations. Results: In this study, our results indicated a strong association between APOA5 SNP -3A>G and G182C and elevated TG levels (p < 0.001). Analysis of the SNPs from APOA5 gene has identified major haplotype showing very strong association with HTG, CGGGTT (p < 0.001). Likelihood ratio test (LRT) of these six SNPs revealed that haplotypes were strong independent predictors of HTG (p < 0.001). Haplotype-trend logistic regression (HTR) analysis revealed a significant association between the CGGGGC (haplotype 2) and CGGGTT (haplotype 4) and HTG (OR = 2.48, 95% CI = 1.06 - 5.76 and OR = 8.54, 95% CI - 2.66 - 27.42, respectively). Conclusion: We confirm that the APOA5 variants are associated with triglyceride levels and the haplotype may be strong independent predictors of HTG among Koreans.