Interleukin-17A gene variants and risk of coronary artery disease: a large angiography-based study

Recent studies have also revealed that interleukin (IL)-17A plays a key role in atherosclerosis and its complication, but the relationship of its common variants with coronary artery disease (CAD) has not been extensively studied. We systematically screened sequence variations in the IL17A gene and designed an angiography-based case-controlled study consisting of 1031 CAD patients and 935 control subjects to investigate the association between the selected polymorphisms of IL-17A gene and CAD risk in Chinese Han population. Frequencies of IL17A rs8193037 GG homozygote and G allele were significantly higher in the patient group than those in the control group (P<0.001; OR=0.68; 95% CI=0.54-0.85). Stratification analysis showed that the IL17A rs8193037 G allele significantly increased the risk of CAD only among male subjects (P=0.001; OR=0.63; 95% CI=0.47-0.83). After adjustment for conventional risk factors, binary logistic regression analysis showed that the G allele carriers (GG+AG) had significantly increased CAD risk compared with the AA homozygotes (adjusted P<0.001; OR 0.43; 95% CI, 0.33-0.58). ELISA showed augmented IL17A production in plasma of the AMI patients. Based on our data, we speculated that the SNP rs8193037 of IL17A gene is significantly associated with CAD risk in Chinese Han population and the rs8193037 G allele which is associated with increased expression of IL17A in AMI patients may be an independent predictive factor for CAD.