Abstract
BackgroundThe paired box 6 (PAX6) gene is considered as a master gene for eye development. Linkage of myopia to the PAX6 region on chromosome 11p13 was shown in several studies, but the results for association between myopia and PAX6 were inconsistent so far.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe genotyped 16 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the PAX6 gene and its regulatory regions in an initial study for 300 high myopia cases and 300 controls (Group 1), and successfully replicated the positive results with another independent group of 299 high myopia cases and 299 controls (Group 2). Five SNPs were genotyped in the replication study. The spherical equivalent of subjects with high myopia was ≤−8.0 dioptres. The PLINK package was used for genetic data analysis. No association was found between each of the SNPs and high myopia. However, exhaustive sliding-window haplotype analysis highlighted an important role for rs12421026 because haplotypes containing this SNP were found to be associated with high myopia. The most significant results were given by the 4-SNP haplotype window consisting of rs2071754, rs3026393, rs1506 and rs12421026 (P = 3.54×10−10, 4.06×10−11 and 1.56×10−18 for Group 1, Group 2 and Combined Group, respectively) and the 3-SNP haplotype window composed of rs3026393, rs1506 and rs12421026 (P = 5.48×10−10, 7.93×10−12 and 6.28×10−23 for the three respective groups). The results remained significant after correction for multiple comparisons by permutations. The associated haplotyes found in a previous study were also successfully replicated in this study.Conclusions/Significance PAX6 haplotypes are associated with susceptibility to the development of high myopia in Chinese. The PAX6 locus plays a role in high myopia.
Highlights
Myopia is the most common human eye disorder in the world and has become a significant public health problem [1,2]
And twin studies support a high heritability of myopia and suggest a definite genetic basis for high myopia [4,5,10,11]
All single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) if a threshold P value of 0.01 was used, except rs3026401 (S9) for the case group (P = 0.0038) (Table 2)
Summary
Myopia is the most common human eye disorder in the world and has become a significant public health problem [1,2]. Myopia is regarded as a complex eye disease affected by both genetic and environmental factors as well as gene-environment interactions [4,5]. The same applies to the severity of myopia This suggests that Asian populations are genetically more susceptible to particular environmental factors which cause myopia [9]. Many myopia loci have been mapped by linkage studies.[4,5] Quite a number of myopia susceptibility genes have been identified by our group [12,13,14,15] and other groups, as has recently been reviewed [4,5]. The majority of findings are conflicting, including those for the paired box 6 (PAX6, GeneID: 5080) gene on chromosome 11. Linkage of myopia to the PAX6 region on chromosome 11p13 was shown in several studies, but the results for association between myopia and PAX6 were inconsistent so far
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