Submitted on September 4, 2007
Revised on November 5, 2007
Accepted on November 5, 2007
Protective effect of an endothelial lipase gene variant on coronary artery disease in a Chinese population
Na-Ping Tang, Lian-Sheng Wang, Li Yang, Bo Zhou, Hai-Juan Gu, Qing-Min Sun, Ri-Hong Cong, Huai-Jun Zhu, and Bin Wang
Pharmacology, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210029
Corresponding Author: binwang{at}njmu.edu.cn
The aim of the present study was to assess the influence of the endothelial lipase (EL) gene 584C/T variant, which results in a change at codon 111 of the EL gene from threonine to isoleucine, on the risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) in a Chinese population. The study population consisted of 265 CAD patients confirmed by coronary angiography and 265 age and sex matched control subjects. The frequency of the T allele was significantly lower among CAD patients than among control subjects (18.3% versus 29.8%, P < 0.001). HDL-C levels were higher in 584C/T variant genotypes (CT and TT) carriers than in CC carriers (controls: 1.16 ± 0.03 versus 1.05 ± 0.03 mmol/l, P = 0.010; cases: 1.06 ± 0.03 versus 0.98 ± 0.02 mmol/l, P = 0.013). In multiple logistic regression model adjusted for age, sex, BMI, smoking, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia and LDL-C, a significantly decreased risk of developing CAD was found in subjects carrying a variant CT or TT genotype (odds ratio = 0.496, 95% confidence interval = 0.341 0.723, P < 0.001), and the significance persisted after further adjustment for HDL-C. In conclusion, our observation that EL 584T variant allele was associated with protection from CAD in this Chinese population replicates the findings in a Japanese study, which found a similar association of this allele with acute myocardial infarction, independent of HDL-C levels.