Gender and effects of a common genetic variant in the NOS1 regulator NOS1AP on cardiac repolarization in 3761 individuals from two independent populations.
BACKGROUND
A longer heart-rate corrected QT interval (QTc) is associated with increased risk of ventricular arrhythmias. Women have longer resting QTc and are more likely than men to develop drug-induced QT prolongation. Recent studies have shown association between resting QTc and a common variant (rs10494366) of the NOS1 regulator, NOS1AP. We investigated the association between rs10494366 in NOS1AP and QTc, and assessed gender-specific NOS1AP associations with QTc during rest and after exercise.


METHODS
We investigated the SNP associations with resting QTc in 919 women and 918 men from 504 representative families in the UK GRAPHIC study, and with QTc at rest and at 3 min recovery after exercise in 699 women and 1225 men referred for exercise testing in the Finnish FINCAVAS study.


RESULTS
In the GRAPHIC study the minor allele (G) of the NOS1AP SNP rs10494366 prolonged QTc by 4.59 ms (95% CI 2.77-6.40; P = 7.63/10(7)) in women, but only by 1.62 ms (95% CI -0.15 to 3.38; P = 0.073) in men (gender-SNP interaction term P = 0.025). In the FINCAVAS study the G allele significantly prolonged QTc in both women (P = 0.0063) and men (P = 0.0043) at 3 min recovery after exercise, but at rest an association was only seen in women (P = 0.020 excluding outliers).


CONCLUSIONS
A common NOS1AP variant prolongs QTc with a difference between genders. Further studies should aim to confirm this finding and to assess whether NOS1AP genotype influences the risk of drug-induced QT prolongation and risk of consequent arrhythmias.
Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, UK. mt47@leicester.ac.uk
Martin D
MD
Tobin
Mika
M
Kähönen
Peter
P
Braund
Tuomo
T
Nieminen
Cother
C
Hajat
Maciej
M
Tomaszewski
Jari
J
Viik
Rami
R
Lehtinen
G Andre
GA
Ng
Peter W
PW
Macfarlane
Paul R
PR
Burton
Terho
T
Lehtimäki
Nilesh J
NJ
Samani
D048868:Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing / Q000235:genetics*; D000328:Adult; D000483:Alleles; D004562:Electrocardiography; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D006306:Health Surveys; D006321:Heart / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008133:Long QT Syndrome / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012737:Sex Factors; D006113:United Kingdom
D048868:Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing; C488081:NOS1AP protein, human