Case-control study of GRIA1 and GRIA3 gene variants in migraine

As the most abundant excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, glutamate has been accepted to play a major role in the pathophysiology of migraine. The previous studies have reported the glutamate receptor ionotropic GRIA1 and GRIA3 genes variants associated with migraine. The project aims to investigate the polymorphisms in both genes for their association with migraine in the Chinese Han population.

A Han-Chinese case-control population, including 331 unrelated female migraine patients and 330 matched controls, was studied. Variants in genes (GRIA1 and GRIA3) were genotyped by Multiplex SNaPshot assay.

In the group of patients, the frequency of allele C was 84.1 % (557 C alleles) and allele T was 15.9 % (105 T alleles) for the GRIA1 (rs2195450) in migraineurs, this was significantly as compared with the controls (P = .001, OR = 1.786, 95 % CI: 1.28-2.49). And an association was also seen in the migraine with aura (MA) subtype (P = .012, OR = 2.092, 95 % CI: 1.17-3.76) and migraine without aura (MO) subtype (P = .002, OR = 1.737, 95 % CI: 1.23-2.45). However, no evidence was found that GRIA1 (rs548294) or GRIA3 (rs3761555) is associated with migraine.

Our data of this study confirmed the association of GRIA1 (rs2195450) to female migraine (MA, MO) susceptibility in the Chinese Han population. The result provides evidence that the glutamatergic system is implicated in the pathophysiology of migraine.