Lack of association between the HindIII RFLP of the osteocalcin (BGP) gene and bone mineral density (BMD) in healthy pre- and postmenopausal Chinese women.
In Caucasian populations, the polymorphic restriction endonuclease HindIII marker of the osteocalcin (also known as BGP, for bone Gla protein) gene has recently been reported to be associated with bone mass, a major risk determinant of osteoporosis. In this study, we investigated the relationship between the BGP HindIII polymorphism and bone mineral density (BMD) in 388 premenopausal (31.18 +/- 5.92 years) and 169 postmenopausal (58.90 +/- 6.27 years) Chinese women. The BMD of spine and hip was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA). All the study subjects were genotyped at the HindIII site of the BGP gene by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) detecting methods. The BGP alleles were designated according to the absence ( H) or presence ( h) of the HindIII restriction site. We did not find any significant difference in spine and hip BMD across BGP genotypes in either pre- or postmenopausal women or the combined group. Our result is not consistent with recent reports that the HindIII marker of the BGP gene is associated with osteoporosis. The different findings may reflect inter-population differences in the association (i.e., linkage disequilibrium) of molecular markers with BMD, and indicate the limit of using the HindIII marker of the BGP gene as a genetic marker to discern women susceptible to low BMD and thus osteoporosis in Chinese.
Mo
Xiao-Yang
XY
Laboratory of Molecular and Statistical Genetics, College of Life Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, PR China.
Cao
Chi-Ke
CK
Xu
Fu-Hua
FH
Liu
Man-Yuan
MY
Li
Miao-Xin
MX
Qin
Yue-Juan
YJ
Zhou
Qi
Q
Zhang
Yuan-Yuan
YY
Deng
Hong-Wen
HW
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics*; D015519:Bone Density / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006262:Health; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D015675:Osteocalcin / Q000235:genetics*; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D017698:Postmenopause / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D017697:Premenopause / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D015265:Site-Specific DNA-Methyltransferase (Adenine-Specific) / Q000378:metabolism*
D015675:Osteocalcin; C090528:DNA modification methylase HindIII; D015265:Site-Specific DNA-Methyltransferase (Adenine-Specific)