Genes and Plasma Lipids in Czech Slavic Population

Abstract

Dyslipidemias are between the most important risk factors of the cardiovascular diseases. Studies with different designs show that the dyslipidemic pattern is clearly heritable and the heritability was estimated to be around 50%. We have analyzed the genetic background of elevated plasma lipids in three studies with different design, all originating from Czech Slavic population. We have examined two small groups of children (N  ∼  90) selected from opposite part of the distribution curve of total cholesterol of 2,000 children; large population of 2,500 individuals selected according the WHO MONICA study criteria and finally 8 years cohort of 250 individuals where substantial decrease of the plasma lipids, as a consequence of the socioeconomic changes, was observed. Alltogether more than 100 variants within different candidate genes were analyzed. Our results showed that especially the variants within the genes for apolipoprotein E, apolipoprotein A5, hepatic lipase and HMGCo-A reductase play a significant role in the determination of the plasma lipid levels. Nutrigenetic analyses suggest an important role of gene environment interactions for variants within apolipoprotein A4, apolipoprotein A5, and cholesterol 7-alpha hydroxylase. However, we were not able to confirm some recent candidates, detected through the genome wide approach. For example the MLXIPL variants exhibit just very marginal effect on plasma triacylglycerols in our Slavic population. Our results point to some generally valid associations between genetic polymorphisms and plasma lipids and underline the importance of the analysis of the gene-gene and gene-environment interactions, as well as the intra-ethnic differences.