[Genome-wide association study of high altitude pulmonary edema]

High altitue pulmonary edema (HAPE) impacts seriously people's health at high altitude. Screening of susceptibility genes for HAPE will be used for the evaluation and protection of susceptible people.

We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) using Affymetrix SNP array 6.0 in 23 HAPE patients and 17 healthy controls. GO and Pathway analysis softwares were used to analyze and draw gene network.

Thirty-nine SNPs were found to be significantly different between case and control groups (P < 10(-4)). GO and Pathway analysis of 27 genes around the 39 SNPs indicated that these genes mainly participate in the regulating of cell proliferation, regulation of nitrogen compound metabolic process and G-protein coupled receptor protein signaling pathway and so on.

It suggests that these SNPs and genes found in this study may be associated with the susceptibility of HAPE.