CRP Gene polymorphism contributes genetic susceptibility to dyslipidemia in Han Chinese population

C-reactive protein (CRP), an inflammatory marker that statistically predicts future cardiovascular risk, has been reported to be associated with plasma lipid level changes. Whether CRP genetic variants affect lipid metabolism is of importance to investigate. A community-based study population including 2,731 adult subjects aged 18–62 years was used to evaluate the association of CRP gene with dyslipidemia and five tagging SNPs (tagSNPs) were genotyped. Multiple logistic regression was applied to further evaluate relationships between the SNPs and lipid metabolism abnormality and general linear model was applied to compare plasma lipid levels between genotypes. Association analyses indicated that recessive model of SNPs rs876537 and rs4285692 had significant association with elevated HDL after adjustment for covariates. Odds ratio (OR) of rs876537 were 0.60 for HDL > 1.54 versus 1.04–1.54 mmol/L (P = 0.011), as well as, ORs were 0.617 for HDL > 1.83 versus ≤1.35 mmol/L (P = 0.002) and 0.724 for HDL = 1.59–1.83 versus ≤1.35 mmol/L (P = 0.028) respectively. OR of rs4285692 was 0.634 for HDL > 1.83 versus ≤1.35 mmol/L (P = 0.027). Further stratification analysis found significant associations of rs10737175 with elevated HDL (>1.54 vs. 1.04–1.54 mmol/L, OR 0.629 and P = 0.027) and elevated TG (≥1.70 vs. <1.70 mmol/L, ORs of additive and dominant models were 0.628, 0.545 and P values were 0.006, 0.003 respectively) in female. rs4285692 was significantly associated with elevated LDL (≥3.37 vs. <3.37 mmol/L), ORs equaled to 1.532, 2.281 for additive model and recessive model and P values were 0.028, 0.024 respectively in male. Furthermore, quantitative trait analysis indicated the variation T to C of rs876537 significantly affect decreased plasma HDL level (P = 0.014). Our findings suggest that CRP genetic polymorphisms independently had positive association with the risk of HDL, LDL and TG elevating and further replication in other large population and biological function research would be warranted.