Roshanak Jazayeri, MD; Mohammad Qoreishi, MD; Hamid Reza Seyyed Hoseinzadeh, MD; Mojgan Babanejad, MS; Enayatollah Bakhshi, PhD; Hossein Najmabadi, PhD; Seyyed Mohammad Jazayeri, MD
Abstract
Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease of the joints. The asporin (ASPN) gene encodes a cartilage extracellular protein belonging to the small leucine-rich proteoglycan family. Polymorphisms in the aspartic acid (D) repeat are associated with OA susceptibility. The D14 allele is associated ...
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Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease of the joints. The asporin (ASPN) gene encodes a cartilage extracellular protein belonging to the small leucine-rich proteoglycan family. Polymorphisms in the aspartic acid (D) repeat are associated with OA susceptibility. The D14 allele is associated with increased OA susceptibility in the Japanese and the Han Chinese but is not an important factor in OA etiology among Caucasians, though the D15 allele is a risk factor for the Greek population. In this study, the effect of ASPN on Iranian with knee OA is investigated.
Methods: 100 knee OA patients (72 female, 28 male) in a training hospital in Tehran, Iran were compared with 100 controls with no sign of OA, and the allelic association of the D-repeat polymorphism was studied in two groups.
Results: There were some minor differences in the frequencies of the D14 and D15 alleles between patient and control groups. These differences were, however, significant only for females. In Iranian females, D15 allele was significantly associated with KOA (p < /em>=.045), and D14 allele was significantly protective from KOA (p < /em>=.032).
Conclusions: D15 allele could be considered a risk allele only for women (p=.045, OR=1.73, 95% CI=1.01-2.94) in the Iranian population. This association is in part similar to that finding for the Greek population.
