Genetic association analyses of fast plasma glucose level in pre-menopausal Chinese women: potential interaction between osteocalcin and oestrogen receptor α.

Background: Fasting plasma glucose (FPG) levels are usually tightly regulated within a narrow physiologic range. Variation of FPG levels is clinically important and is strongly heritable. Several lines of evidence suggest the importance of the oestrogen receptorα(ER-α) and osteocalcin (also known as BGP, for bone Gla protein) in determining FPG; however, whether their polymorphisms are associated with FPG variation is not well understood. Aim: To investigate whether ER-aPvuII and BGPHindIII genetic polymorphisms and their potential interaction are associated with FPG variation. Subjects and methods: The study subjects were 328 unrelated pre-menopausal Chinese women aged 21 years and over (mean age ± SD, 33.2 ± 5.9 years), with an average FPG of 4.92 (SD = 0.81). All subjects were genotyped at the ER-α PvuII and BGPHindIII loci using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). Results: The ER-α PvuII genotypes were significantly associated with FPG (p = 0.007). In addition, a significant interaction was observed of the ER-α PvuII polymorphism with BGPHindIII polymorphism on FPG variation (p = 0.013), although the BGPHindIII polymorphism was not shown to be individually associated with FPG. Conclusion: ThePvuII polymorphism of the ER-αgene and its potential interaction with theHindIII polymorphism of the BGP gene were associated with FPG in pre-menopausal Chinese women. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]