­Exfoliation syndrome and exfoliation glaucoma-associated LOXL1 variations are not involved in pigment dispersion syndrome and pigmentary glaucoma

PURPOSE Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the LOXL1 gene have been implicated in exfoliation syndrome (XFS) and exfoliation glaucoma (XFG). We have shown that these SNPs are not associated with the primary glaucomas such as primary open-angle (POAG) glaucoma and primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG). To further establish the specificity of LOXL1 SNPs for XFS and XFG, we determined whether these SNPs were involved in pigment dispersion syndrome (PDS) and pigmentary glaucoma (PG). METHODS Three SNPs of LOXL1 (rs1048661, rs3825942, and rs2165241) were screened in a cohort of 78 unrelated and clinically well characterized glaucoma cases comprising of PG (n=44) and PDS (n=34) patients as well as 108 ethnically matched normal controls of Caucasian origin. The criteria for diagnosis of PDS/PG were Krukenberg spindle, hyperpigmentation of the trabecular meshwork, and wide open angle. Transillumination defects were detected by infrared pupillography, and the presence of a Zentmayer ring was considered as a confirmatory sign. All three SNPs were genotyped in cases and controls by resequencing the genomic region of LOXL1 harboring these variants and were further confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based restriction digestions. Haplotypes were generated from the genotype data, and the linkage disequilibrium (LD) and haplotype analysis were done with Haploview software that uses the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. RESULTS The LOXL1 SNPs showed no significant association with PDS or PG. There was no significant difference in the frequencies of the risk alleles of rs1048661 ('G' allele; p=0.309), rs3825942 ('G' allele' p=0.461), and rs2165241 ('T' allele; p=0.432) between PG/PDS cases and controls. Similarly, there was no involvement of the XFS/XFG-associated haplotypes, 'G-G' (p=0.643; [OR=1.08, 95%CI, 0.59-1.97]) and 'T-G' (p=0.266; [OR=1.35, 95%CI, 0.70-2.60]), with the PDS/PG phenotypes. The risk haplotype 'G-G' was observed in ~55% of the normal controls. CONCLUSIONS There was no involvement of the LOXL1 SNPs in patients with PDS and PG. The results further indicate that the associations of these SNPs are specific to XFS/XFG.