C-reactive protein gene polymorphisms and the incidence of post-angioplasty restenosis

Recent findings have demonstrated that plasma C-reactive protein levels predict restenosis after coronary angioplasty. Furthermore, C-reactive protein levels have also been shown to be heritable. However, no genetic-epidemiological data are available on the relationship between genetic variants of C-reactive protein (CRP) gene and risk of restenosis after angioplasty. The present study was carried out to examine the possible association of a non-sense exonic 1059G > C and an intronic T > A C-reactive protein gene polymorphisms in a large, previously described, well-characterized cohort of 779 post-angioplasty patients of whom 342 subjects developed restenosis. Genotype distributions were in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. Genotype and allele distributions were similar between cases and controls. Haploytpe frequency distributions were also similar between cases and controls. Further investigation using a haplotype-based logistic and linear regression analyses, adjusting for potential confounders, yielded similar null results. In conclusion, we found no evidence for an association between the polymorphisms/haplotypes thereof tested and restenosis after angioplasty.