Are C-Reactive Protein Associated Genetic Variants Associated with Serum Levels and Retinal Markers of Microvascular Pathology in Asian Populations from Singapore?

Rajkumar Dorajoo, Ruoying Li, Mohammad Kamran Ikram, Jianjun Liu, Philippe Froguel, Jeannette Lee, Xueling Sim, Rick Twee-Hee Ong, Wan Ting Tay, Chen Peng, Terri L Young, Alexandra I F Blakemore, Ching Yu Cheng, Tin Aung, Paul Mitchell, Jie Jin Wang, Caroline C Klaver, Eric Boerwinkle, Ronald Klein, David S Siscovick, Richard A Jensen, Vilmundur Gudnason, Albert Vernon Smith, Yik Ying Teo, Tien Yin Wong, E-Shyong Tai, Chew-Kiat Heng and Yechiel Friedlander

PLOS ONE, 2013, vol. 8, issue 7, 1-9

Abstract: Introduction: C-reactive protein (CRP) levels are associated with cardiovascular disease and systemic inflammation. We assessed whether CRP-associated loci were associated with serum CRP and retinal markers of microvascular disease, in Asian populations. Methods: Genome-wide association analysis (GWAS) for serum CRP was performed in East-Asian Chinese (N = 2,434) and Malays (N = 2,542) and South-Asian Indians (N = 2,538) from Singapore. Leveraging on GWAS data, we assessed, in silico, association levels among the Singaporean datasets for 22 recently identified CRP-associated loci. At loci where directional inconsistencies were observed, quantification of inter-ethnic linkage disequilibrium (LD) difference was determined. Next, we assessed association for a variant at CRP and retinal vessel traits [central retinal artery equivalent (CRAE) and central retinal vein equivalent (CRVE)] in a total of 24,132 subjects of East-Asian, South-Asian and European ancestry. Results: Serum CRP was associated with SNPs in/near APOE, CRP, HNF1A and LEPR (p-values ≤4.7×10−8) after meta-analysis of Singaporean populations. Using a candidate-SNP approach, we further replicated SNPs at 4 additional loci that had been recently identified to be associated with serum CRP (IL6R, GCKR, IL6 and IL1F10) (p-values ≤0.009), in the Singaporean datasets. SNPs from these 8 loci explained 4.05% of variance in serum CRP. Two SNPs (rs2847281 and rs6901250) were detected to be significant (p-value ≤0.036) but with opposite effect directions in the Singaporean populations as compared to original European studies. At these loci we did not detect significant inter-population LD differences. We further did not observe a significant association between CRP variant and CRVE or CRAE levels after meta-analysis of all Singaporean and European datasets (p-value >0.058). Conclusions: Common variants associated with serum CRP, first detected in primarily European studies, are also associated with CRP levels in East-Asian and South-Asian populations. We did not find a causal link between CRP and retinal measures of microvascular disease.

Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0067650

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0067650

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