The association of a single nucleotide polymorphism in the promoter region of the LAMA1 gene with susceptibility to Chinese high myopia

PURPOSE High myopia is a severe hereditary ocular disease leading to blindness. LAMA1 (alpha subunit of laminin) is a promising candidate gene for high myopia present in the MYP2 (myopia 2) region. The purpose of this study was to determine if high myopia is associated with single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) variants in LAMA1 in Chinese subjects. METHODS Ninety-seven Chinese subjects with high myopia and ethnically and sexually matched 103 normal controls were enrolled. Genomic DNA was prepared from peripheral blood. The 5 SNPs of LAMA1 were analyzed using PCR and SNaPshot. Allele frequencies were tested for Hardy-Weinberg disequilibrium. The genotype and allele frequencies were evaluated using the χ(2) tests or the Fisher exact tests. RESULTS One of the 5 SNPs showed a significant difference between patients and control subjects (rs2089760: p(genotype)=0.005, p(allel)=0.003). There were no statistically significant differences between patients and control subjects for the other four SNPs: rs566655, rs11664063, rs607230, and rs3810046. CONCLUSIONS Our results indicate that the polymorphism of rs2089760, located in the promoter region of LAMA1, may be associated with high myopia in the Chinese population and should be investigated further.