INCREASED FREQUENCY OF APOLIPOPROTEIN-B SIGNAL PEPTIDE SP24 24 IN PATIENTS WITH CORONARY-ARTERY DISEASE - GENERAL ALLELE SURVEY IN THE POPULATION OF TAIWAN AND COMPARISON WITH CAUCASIANS/

Apolipoprotein B (apoB) signal peptide (sp) polymorphism was character ized by polymerase chain reaction in blood samples of 58 coronary arte ry disease (CAD) patients and 319 control individuals of Chinese Han e thnic origin in Taiwan. In the CAD group, 77% of the observed alleles were sp27 (sp with 27 amino acids), and the remaining 23% sp24 (sp wit h 24 amino acids). The frequency distributions of the apoB sp allele i n the control group were 0.81 for sp27 and 0.19 for sp24. The genotype distributions were 0.64 sp27/27, 0.26 sp27/24 and 0.10 sp24/24 in the CAD group; 0.64 sp27/27, 0.33 sp27/24 and 0.03 sp24/24 in the control group. The frequency of sp24/24 was significantly higher (p = 0.0 1 2 ) in the CAD group than in the control group. Several studies have sho wn that the frequency of sp24/24 is higher in hyperlipidemic than in n ormolipidemic groups. This marker is probably in linkage disequlibrium with some other atherogenic genes. Our study shows that the differenc es in both apoB signal peptide alleles and sp27/27 and sp27/24 genotyp e distributions are statistically significant between the Taiwanese an d Caucasians.