Association of GSDMC polymorphisms with lumbar disc herniation among Chinese Han population

Lumbar disc herniation (LDH) is a relatively common spinal disease, but its pathogenesis is still unknown. Numerous studies have shown that LDH is closely correlated with inflammation, and it has been found to be related to some single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Our purpose is to explore the correlation between gene polymorphisms of GSDMC and LDH risk, which is of great significance for the study of the pathogenesis of LDH. DNA was extracted from 508 LDH patients and 508 controls. We select SNPs with minor allele frequency >5% in GSDMC gene from 1,000 genome project (http://www.internationalgenome.org/). Then, genotyping was performed using Agena MassARRAY. We used unconditional logistic regression analysis to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The haplotype construction and analysis in GSDMC were applied to detect the association. We identified that rs77681114 in the GSDMC gene was significantly associated with a decreased risk of LDH in the alleles model (OR = 0.81, 95% CI = 0.66-0.99, p = .049) and the log-additive model (OR = 0.81, 95% CI = 0.65-0.99, p = .049) adjusted by age and gender. The haplotype "AG" constructed by rs77681114 and rs4285452 (OR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.01-1.53, p = .039) was associated with increased risk of LDH. After age and gender stratification, rs77681114 protected LDH risk at age 49 or older in allelic model (p = .010), co-dominant model (p = .006), dominant model (p = .029), recessive model (p = .011) and log-additive model (p = .005). Rs77681114 had protective effect on female LDH risk in both co-dominant models (p = .033) and recessive models (p = .043). These studies indicated that genetic polymorphisms of GSDMC can relatively reduce the risk of LDH.