Replication studies for the association of PSMA6 polymorphism with coronary artery disease in East Asian populations

Coronary artery disease (CAD) has become a major health problem in many countries because of its increasing prevalence and high mortality. Recently, an association of a functional sequence variation, −8C>G, in the human proteasome subunit α type 6 gene ( PSMA6 ) with the susceptibility to CAD was reported. To validate the association, we investigated a total of 1330 cases and 2554 controls from Japanese and Korean populations for PSMA6 genotypes, and no evidence of the association was obtained in both Japanese (odds ratio (OR)=1.03, 95% confidence interval (CI); 0.90–1.19, P =0.66, allele count model) and Korean populations (OR=1.00, 95% CI; 0.86–1.17, P =0.95, allele count model). However, when a meta-analysis of data from this study and previously reported six replication studies was done, OR was 1.08 for the G allele (95% CI; 1.02–1.14, P =0.0057), suggesting that the contribution of PSMA6 to CAD was not large enough to be readily replicated. Further studies are required to establish the contribution of this variant in the susceptibility to CAD.