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Journal of Lipid Research, Vol. 44, 430-436, February 2003 Biological and genetic determinants of serum apoC-III concentration: reference limits from the Stanislas Cohort
Institut National de Santé et de Recherche Médicale U525, Centre de Médecine Préventive, 2 Avenue du Doyen J. Parisot, F54500 Vandoeuvre-Lès-Nancy, France Published, JLR Papers in Press, October 1, 2002. DOI 10.1194/jlr.M200006-JLR200
1 To whom correspondence should be addressed. e-mail: gerard.siest{at}cmp.u-nancy.fr
Apolipoprotein C-III (apoC-III) is involved in triglycerides metabolism, and is therefore important for the pathogenesis of coronary heart diseases. However, to our knowledge serum apoC-III variation factors and reference limits have never been determined, so the aim of this study was to establish them and facilitate clinical usefulness. We measured serum apoC-III concentration of apparently healthy subjects of the Stanislas Cohort by an immunoturbidimetric method. Genetic polymorphisms within the APOC3, APOE, APOAIV, and LPL genes were determined by a multiplex PCR. Serum apoC-III concentration varied from 28.2 mg/l to 225.8 mg/l in the overall sample and between subjects variability was about 30%. Factors influencing apoC-III concentration were age, BMI in adult men, alcohol consumption in adults, oral contraceptive intake in women, the post-pubescent status in boys. The APOC3 1100T allele in adult men and the APOC3 -455C allele in boys were associated with increased apoC-III concentration. The APOA4 360His allele was associated with decreased apoC-III concentration in women. We also established reference limits of serum apoC-III concentration according to age and gender.
Supplementary key words apolipoproteins lipids reference values polymorphism
Apolipoprotein C-III (apoC-III), a major component of HDL, triglyceride-rich lipoproteins (TRL) (i.e., VLDL and chylomicrons), and, to a lesser extent LDL, plays an important role in the metabolism of these TRLs (1). Therefore, apoC-III concentration is highly and positively correlated to triglyceride concentrations (1). Over-expression of human apoC-III in the plasma of transgenic mice results in hypertriglyceridemia (2, 3) and an increase of atherosclerosis (3). In contrast, apoC-III-deficient mice are protected from postprandial hypertriglyceridemia and show reduced triglyceride concentrations (3). Serum concentration of apoC-III, especially non-HDL apoC-III present on TRL, has been found to be associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) (4, 5). It has been proposed that apolipoprotein composition of lipoproteins is more closely linked to CHD than the conventional measurement of lipid content (6). Serum apoC-III concentration has been found at higher level in several pathological situations such as type 2 diabetes (7), hyperbilirubinemia (8), kidney deficiency (9), and decreased in thyroid dysfunction (10). Factors reported to influence apoC-III levels in healthy individuals are gender (11), age, menopause status (12), and genetic polymorphisms in the APOC3 gene (1316). Genetic variants in the APOE, APOA4, and LPL genes are also potential determinants of apoC-III concentration. LPL and apoE are both involved in TRL metabolism (17, 18) and common APOE polymorphisms, and several polymorphisms in the LPL gene have been related to triglyceride concentration (19, 20). The APOA4 gene is located in the 15 kb APOA4-C3-A1 gene cluster (21) and is involved in triglyceride metabolism. Polymorphisms in the APOA4 gene have been related to triglyceride concentrations (22). ApoC-III is not frequently measured in clinical investigations, whereas apoA-I and apoB are well tested. Due to the important role of apoC-III in TRL metabolism and the increasing evidence of the implication of these particles in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases, we judged it useful to determine both biological and genetic factors influencing serum apoC-III concentration and establish its reference limits for a Caucasian population coming from the Eastern part of France. Indeed, current values of apoC-III concentration have been evaluated through an immunoturbidimetric method on only a small sample of 100 individuals (11) or on a larger population composed of non-Caucasian people (12). To our knowledge, serum apoC-III concentration reference limits had never been established in Caucasian populations.
Sample population The studied population has been taken from the Stanislas cohort, a longitudinal familial study that has been previously described (23). The sample population is composed of volunteers for a free 5-year periodic health examination. Subjects were Caucasian and came from the Vosges and the South of Meurthe et Moselle (Eastern part of France). All the individuals were apparently healthy: they were free from serious and/or chronic illnesses known and declared by them, none demonstrated clinical, biochemical or haematological evidence of cardiovascular, hepatic, or renal failures. Each subject gave written informed consent for participating in this study, which was approved by the Local Ethics Committee of Nancy.
For this study, the sample population included 865 individuals coming for the second health examination. These subjects did not take any cardiovascular medication. We excluded four subjects for abnormal liver metabolism with
Blood samples and data collection Alcohol, tobacco, and drug consumption were collected during the blood sampling by a self-administered questionnaire. Current number of cigarettes, cigars, and pipes smoked daily were recorded. Cigars and pipes tobacco consumption was converted into equivalent cigarette tobacco consumption. Daily wine and beer consumption and weekly spirit consumption have been recorded. Beverages consumption has been convert in grams of alcohol daily consumed. BMI was calculated according to the Quetelet's formula: weight /height 2 (kg/m 2).
Analytical methods
Biological measurements were determined by classical routine methods
Statistical analysis
For APOE common polymorphism, three variables, APOE4, APOE3, and APOE2 were generated. The APOE4 group was composed of subjects carrying the For studying APOC3 3175 C/G, APOA4 Thr347Ser and Glu360His, and LPL Ser447Ter polymorphisms, individuals homozygous and heterozygous for the less frequent allele were pooled together due to the small number of homozygous subjects. Statistical significance was set at P < 0.05.
Characteristics of the studied population Characteristics of the sample population are presented in Table 1. They were in agreement with the recruitment of apparently healthy subjects (29). Most of the adults were middle-aged. Alcohol and tobacco consumption, as well as drug intake were moderate. All biological parameters had values within reference ranges and BMI values were almost within the reference ranges. Table 2 indicates the allelic frequencies for all the studied polymorphisms, the genotype distribution for each polymorphism being in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.
Distribution of apoC-III concentration Figure 1 showed apoC-III distribution among men, women, boys, and girls. Mean values and medians of serum apoC-III concentration are shown in Table 1. In the total sample, serum apoC-III concentration varied between 28.1 mg/l and 225.8 mg/l. Serum apoC-III concentration was significantly higher in men than in women (P < 0.01), and adults had higher serum apoC-III concentration than children (P < 0.01). There was no difference among children according to gender. The between-subjects variabilities were 35% for men, 30% for women, 26% in boys, and 32% for girls.
Factors of biological variation and reference limits of serum apoC-III concentration No influence of tobacco consumption, bilirubin concentration, anti-inflammatory treatment, or the season during which the blood collection had been done was found (P > 0.10) (data not shown). In contrast, both men and boys serum apoC-III concentration was significantly correlated with age and BMI (Table 3). Serum apoC-III concentration was significantly linked to alcohol consumption in adults. The post-pubescent status was related to serum apoC-III concentration in boys and oral contraceptive intake was significantly related to increased serum apoC-III concentration in females. Menopausal status seemed to have no significant influence on serum apoC-III concentration (P = 0.082).
The main biological factors of serum apoC-III concentration, determined by stepwise multiple regression analysis, were age (ß = 0.0028, P = 0.022), BMI (ß = 0.0086, P = 0.004), and alcohol consumption (ß = 0.77 10-3, P = 0.035) in men. In women, they were alcohol consumption, oral contraceptive intake, and age (ß = 0.0025, P < 0.001; ß = 0.092, P < 0.001 and ß = 0.0029, P = 0.030 respectively). The main factor of serum apoC-III variation in boys was the post-pubescent status (ß = 0.046, P = 0.003) and in girls it was the oral contraceptive intake (ß = 0.083, P = 0.001). Reference limits for serum apoC-III concentration were obtained after adjustment for significant biological covariates in each group. Table 4 presents percentiles of serum apoC-III concentration according to age and gender used as partition criteria. Subjects aged 4 to 20 years were pooled together as apoC-III medians were not found significantly different in (413), (1417), and (1820) age groups. Concerning the 50th percentile, values of serum apoC-III concentration increased regularly with age in both males and females.
Genetic factors of apoC-III concentration variation LPL Ser447Ter polymorphism had no significant influence on serum apoC-III levels. In contrast, in males, serum apoC-III concentration was significantly associated with APOC3 polymorphisms at different loci: -641T/C (P = 0.02 in boys),-482C/T (P = 0.05 in men and P = 0.02 in boys), -455T/C (P = 0.007 in boys), 1100C/T (P < 0.001 in men), 3175C/G (P = 0.05 in men), and 3206T/G (P = 0.01 in men), with the rare allele or the homozygous for the rare allele related to an increase in serum apoC-III concentration. The -455T/C and 1100C/T polymorphisms are the more important apoC-III genetic variation contributing to apoC-III concentration in boys and men, respectively (Table 5). In females, carriers of the APOA4 360His allele presented significant lower serum apoC-III concentration compared to the APOA4 360 Glu/Glu carriers (P = 0.037 in women and P = 0.003 in girls) (Table 5). In women also, apoC-III concentration decreased significantly in subjects carrying the APOE 3/ 4 or 4/ 4 genotypes compared to the carriers of the APOE 2/ 2 or 2/ 4 genotypes (P = 0.023) (Table 5).
We tested potential interactions between APOC3 -455C, 1100T, APOA4 360 His, APOE 4 alleles, and environmental factors (gender, age, BMI, alcohol, or contraceptive pill). Significant interactions were found in adults between APOC3 1100C/T polymorphism and gender (from two-way ANOVA P = 0.0035 for APOC3 1100T x gender) and in males between APOC3 1100C/T polymorphism and age (P = 0.0010 for APOC3 1100T x age over 20 years old). No other significant interactions between apoC-III covariates and genetic polymorphisms was observed.
Herein, we reported factors of apoC-III biological variation and provide reference limits for apoC-III, measured by immunoturbidimetry assay. We found that the between individual variability of serum apoC-III concentration was important (from 26% to 35%) and similar to those already reported for other apolipoproteins such as apoB (30), apoAI (31), and apoE (32). Bilirubin did not affect serum apoC-III concentration as reported by Rifai et al. (11), who used the same immunoturbidimetric method. In the study of Davit- Spraul et al. (8), a hyperbilirubinemia higher than 100 µmol/l was associated with elevated concentrations of apoC-III. However, in the present study, bilirubinemia was less than 100 µmol/l (less than 61 µmol/l) as expected for healthy subjects. therefore, the lack of association observed between serum apoC-III concentration and bilirubin was not surprising. A borderline significant relationship was observed between serum apoC-III concentration and menopausal status in the present study. This is probably due to the small number of menopaused women in our study (only 11 women representing 5% of the women). The absence of significant effect of tobacco consumption on serum apoC-III concentration was already reported by Peacock et al. (14). In both men and women, we found that age was related to increase of apoC-III. Noma et al. (12) reported a decrease of serum apoC-III concentration after 60 years that cannot be evidenced in the present study because of the younger age of our sample population (<56 years for men and <54 years for women). ApoC-III concentration increased with post-pubescent status in boys as observed for triglyceride (33) and apoE concentrations (32). Indeed, as reported in the literature, apoC-III concentration was highly correlated to triglycerides in our population (P < 0.0001). ApoC-III concentration was affected by alcohol consumption in adults, in the same way that triglyceride concentration increases with alcohol consumption. This agrees with Lecomte et al. (34), who showed that apoC-III and lipoproteins containing apoC-III concentration were related to ethanol consumption and that they decreased after alcohol withdrawal treatment. Oral contraceptive intake was found associated with an elevation in serum apoC-III concentration with a similar impact to that reported for triglycerides (29). Significant association between apoC-III concentration and APOC3 polymorphisms was observed in males only. This finding is consistent with our previous observation of the lack of association between the APOC3 1100C/T polymorphism and triglycerides in women (35). This agrees also with Groenendijk et al. (16), who found no association between the APOC3 promoter polymorphisms and APOC-III concentration in spouses of familial combined hyperlipidemia probands. In contrast to this study, Peacock et al. (20) reported that the relation between APOC3 1100C/T polymorphism and apoC-III occurs in both sexes, but the study was done in Icelander sample population, a specific population. Dallongeville et al. (13) found an association between the APOC3 -482 C/T in women only, but most of the effect was observed in the postmenopausal group and in our study, postmenopausal women were very few. Our results together with other reports reinforced the idea that the relation between APOC3 polymorphisms and apoC-III and other lipids traits may vary according to gender (13, 14, 35). Polymorphisms in the 3' region of the APOC3 gene were more particularly associated with apoC-III in adult men whereas polymorphisms in the promoter region were in boys. This may indicate age-dependent relationship. Very few data exist in children. In contrast to this study, Shoulders et al. (36) showed in a community-based sample of Italian school children that the polymorphisms in the APOC3 promoter were not related to apoC-III concentration whereas the APOC3 3175C/G was. Adult men bearing the less frequent allele of the APOC3 1100, 3175, and 3206 polymorphisms had higher APOC-III concentration. These results are consistent with previous association studies that have shown significant effects of these polymorphisms on apoC-III (37) and triglyceride (38) concentrations even if these results were not observed in all studies (13, 39). To our knowledge, this is the first study showing association between APOA4 polymorphism and apoC-III concentration. The APOA4 360His allele was associated with decreased of serum apoC-III concentration in females with a more important impact in girls. In accordance with our results, some studies have previously found that this allele was related to reduced fasting triglyceride and increase HDL concentrations (22), even if some studies failed to show these effects. ApoA-IV is involved in transport, use, and storage of triglycerides and variation in its gene could lead to a modification in the metabolism of triglycerides and thus to variation of apoC-III concentration. Furthermore, the APOA4 gene is located next the APOC3 gene in the same gene cluster. Therefore, variation in the APOA4 gene or in linkage disequilibrium with variation in the intergenic region of the cluster could play a role in the regulation of APOC3 transcription, which could explain the decrease in serum apoC-III concentration observed in women. Indeed, common enhancers for the expression of apoC-III and apoA-IV have been described (40). The association was evidenced in females only, indicating possible hormonal regulation. In conclusion, we have determined biological and genetic factors of variation of the serum apoC-III concentration in a healthy middle-aged Caucasian population. For the first time, we established reference limits for serum apoC-III concentration, measured by immunoturbidimetric method, in a Caucasian population sample issued from the Eastern part of France. This work provided information to take into account for the interpretation of serum apoC-III measurements in clinical laboratories.
The authors are grateful to the staff of the Center for Preventive Medicine of Vandoeuvre-Lès-Nancy, France, for their contributions in recruitment of the Stanislas cohort, blood collection, and sample analysis. The authors would like to thank the families of the Stanislas cohort for their participation to this study. This work was in part supported by the Lorraine Region, the Urban Community of Nancy, the Institut National de Santé et de Recherche Médicale contract IDS 1999 (Interactions between health determinants), Daiichi Pure Chemicals ( Japan), and by Roche Molecular Systems. Roche Molecular Systems also provided the multiplex genotyping reagents used for this work. The Stanislas Cohort study is also supported by Bayer and Randox. Manuscript received January 4, 2002 and in revised form July 25, 2002.
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