Genetic Association Study Revealed Three Loci Were Associated Risk of Myopia Among Minors

Myopia has raised a predominant public concern among minors. A recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified six novel loci in Asian adults. Whether these genetic loci works for myopia in minors remains unknown and worthy of exploration.

In order to validate the findings, here we performed a case-control study (600 myopia minors, 110 high myopia (HM) minors, and 800 non-myopia minors as controls) utilizing the TaqMan single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping assays. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) was adopted.

The median ages in controls, myopia, and HM were 15.1, 15.0, and 15.1, respectively, while the means ± standard deviations for them were 0.32±0.41, - 3.2 ±1.6, and -9.8±2.2, respectively. We found rs2246661 (allelic OR: 1.29; 95% CI: 1.09-1.52; P =0.003), rs74633073 (allelic OR: 1.41; 95% CI: 1.12-1.78; P =0.004), and rs76903431 (allelic OR: 1.42; 95% CI: 1.11-1.81; P =0.005) were significantly associated with increased risk of myopia. Rs2246661 was also significantly associated with increased risk of HM in minors (OR: 1.37; 95% CI: 1.02-1.84; P =0.035).

We identified three loci contributed to myopia in minors and these findings gave new insight into the genetic susceptibility mechanisms of myopia at the molecular level.