Variants of the fatty acid-binding protein 2 gene are not associated with coronary heart disease in nondiabetic subjects and in patients with NIDDM.

Abstract

To investigate the association of variants of the fatty acid-binding protein (FABP) 2 gene with coronary heart disease (CHD) in nondiabetic subjects and in patients with NIDDM. Cross-sectional study included 135 nondiabetic and 79 NIDDM subjects with stenosis (> 50%) in at least two coronary arteries. A group of 81 healthy nondiabetic men without CHD served as a control population. All exons and intron-exon junctions of the FABP2 gene were amplified with the polymerase chain reaction, and variants were screened with the single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis. The allele frequency of an amino acid polymorphism (alanine-->threonine) in codon 54 of exon 2 of the FABP2 gene was 0.26 in nondiabetic subjects with CHD and 0.27 in NIDDM subjects with CHD. Other variants (GTA 118 GTC, GCGCA-->GCACA in the 3'-noncoding region, and the number of ATT repeats in intron 2) also did not associate with CHD. The variants of the FABP2 gene are not likely to contribute to the risk of CHD in Finnish nondiabetic and NIDDM subjects.