Investigation of the MGP promoter and exon 4 polymorphisms in patients with ischemic stroke in the Ukrainian population

Abstract

Matrix γ-carboxyglutamic acid protein (MGP) is a vitamin K-dependent protein playing a pivotal role in preventing arterial calcification. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the relation between three single nucleotide polymorphisms of MGP gene and ischemic stroke (IS) in the Ukrainian population. 170 IS patients and 124 healthy controls were recruited to the study. MGP SNPs were examined by PCR-RFLP methodology. The distribution of homozygous carriers of the major allelic variant, and heterozygous and homozygous minor allele variants of the T-138C MGP promoter polymorphism (rs1800802) in patients with IS was 61.2%, 31.2% and 7.6%, respectively. The corresponding distributions of the variants in the control group were 59.7%, 35.6%, 4.8%. With regard to the G-7A promoter polymorphism (rs1800801), the respective distributions were 35.9%, 48.8% and 15.3%, compared to 43.5%, 50% and 6.5% in the control group. Finally, the respective distributions according to the Thr83Ala exon 4 polymorphism (rs4236) were 39.4%, 48.8% and 11.8%, compared to 34.7%, 53.2% and 12.1% in the control group. Using logistic regression analysis, it was estimated that A/A genotype (G-7A polymorphism) was significantly (P=0.016) associated with IS (OR=2.943; 95% CI: 1.218–7.109) in the Ukrainian population. A-allele homozygotes of female sex had a risk of IS more than 7 times higher compared with carriers of G/G genotype.