A novel major histocompatibility complex locus confers the risk of premature coronary artery disease in a Chinese Han population

Several novel loci have been proved to be associated with coronary artery disease and/or myocardial infarction risk by genome-wide association studies, however, the available coronary artery disease risk variants explain only a small proportion of the predicted genetic heritability of the disease. Recently, a novel coronary artery disease locus on chromosome 6p21.3 in the major histocompatibility complex was identified in an European population. We hereby investigated whether this single nucleotide polymorphisms (rs3869109) confers the risk of premature coronary artery disease in a Chinese Han population. A total of 422 patients were studied including 210 cases with coronary stenosis ≥50 % or previous myocardial infarction (male <55 years and female <65 years) and 212 controls without documented coronary artery disease. Ligase detection reaction was performed to detect rs3869109. The 3 genotypes AA, AG, and GG were present in rs3869109. There were significant differences between the control and premature coronary artery disease groups in the frequencies of the rs3869109 variants and alleles (all P < 0.05). The distribution of 3 genotypes and alleles at rs3869109 does not differ between women and men (all P > 0.05). There was a significant association between rs3869109 genotypes and the severity of premature coronary artery disease (P = 0.038). Multivariate logistic regression showed that carriers with AG and GG genotypes at rs3869109 have a higher risk of premature coronary artery disease than carriers of AA genotype (odds ratio OR] 1.997, 95 % CI: 1.166–3.419, P = 0.012; OR 1.695, 95 % CI: 1.044–2.752, P = 0.033; respectively). Our results indicate that the rs3869109 variants are associated with premature coronary artery disease in a Chinese Han population, suggesting this genetic risk marker is useful in early coronary artery disease risk prediction.