Lack of association between arterial stiffness and genetic variants by genome-wide association scan

Background. Arterial stiffness is an independent predictor of cardiovascular disease risk. However, whether genetic risk variants are associated with arterial stiffness measures, such as pulse-wave velocity (PWV), is largely unknown. Therefore, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with PWV in a Korea population. Method. Study participants consisted of 402 patients in the Yonsei cardiovascular genome center cohort. Arterial stiffness was measured as brachial-ankle pulse-wave velocity (baPWV). Genotyping was performed in 402 subjects with the Axiom^™ Genome-Wide ASI 1 Array Plate containing more than 600,000 SNP markers. The findings were tested for replication in independent subjects from a community-based cohort of 1206 individuals, using a Taqman assay to include two candidate SNPs. Associations with PWV were evaluated using an additive genetic model that included age, gender, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure as covariates. GWAS and replication analyses were conducted using the measured genotype method implemented in PLINK and SAS. Results. We observed two candidate SNPs associated with baPWV in GWAS: rs7271920 (p = 7.15 × 10^-9) and rs10125157 (p = 8.25 × 10^-7). However, neither of these was significant in the replication cohort. Conclusion: In summary, we did not identify any common genetic variants associated with baPWV in cardiovascular patients.