Promoter methylation and functional variants in arachidonate 5-lipoxygenase and forkhead box protein O1 genes associated with coronary artery disease

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a multifactorial chronic inflammatory disease, which is the most common form of heart disease. This is one of the main causes of death in the United States. Inflammation is one of the key drivers of atherosclerotic plaque development. Forkhead box protein O1 (FOXO1s) family and 5-lipoxygenase make an important contribution to atherosclerosis. The aim of this study was to investigate the methylation pattern and polymorphism analysis of FOXO1 and arachidonate 5-lipoxygenase (ALOX5) promoter genes. We studied 50 patients with CAD and 50 age- and sex-matched healthy controls by high resolution melt technique. Overall, we found significant differences between patients and controls in terms of the promoter methylation of ALOX5 (P > 0.05). But there was no significant difference in FOXO1 promoter methylation between patient and controls. Single nucleotide polymorphisms genotyping of rs12762303 and rs2297627, in ALOX5 and FOXO1 genes were demonstrated a significant correlation between mutant allele and the risk of CAD, respectively. Furthermore, there were significant associations between CT + CC genotype and ALOX5 expression. Our findings demonstrated functional effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and DNA methylation in ALOX5 on mentioned genes expression and they resulted in CAD progression.