Region 8q24 is a susceptibility locus for nonsyndromic oral clefting in Brazil

BACKGROUND Nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate is a relatively common craniofacial defect with multifactorial inheritance. The association of the rs987525 single nucleotide variant, located in a gene desert at 8q24.21 region, has been consistently replicated in European populations. We performed a structured association approach combined with transcriptional analysis of the MYC gene to dissect the role of rs987525 in oral clefting susceptibility in the ethnically admixed Brazilian population. METHODS We performed the association study conditioned on the individual ancestry proportions in a sample of 563 patients and 336 controls, and in an independent sample of 221 patients and 261 controls. The correlation between rs987525 genotypes and MYC transcriptional levels in orbicularis oris muscle mesenchymal stem cells was also investigated in 42 patients and 4 controls. RESULTS We found a significant association in the larger sample (p = 0.0016; OR = 1.80 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 1.21–2.69], for heterozygous genotype, and 2.71 [95% CI, 1.47–4.96] for homozygous genotype). We did not find a significant correlation between rs987525 genotypes and MYC transcriptional levels (p = 0.14; r = −0.22, Spearman Correlation). CONCLUSIONS We present a positive association of rs987525 in the Brazilian population for the first time, and it is likely that the European contribution to our population is driving this association. We also cannot discard a role of rs987515 in MYC regulation, because this locus behaves as an expression quantitative locus of MYC in another tissue. Birth Defects Research (Part A), 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.