The goal of our study was to evaluate the genetic effects of sixteen single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in apoptosis-related genes on the development of coronary artery disease (CAD) through a case-control study. A total of 1979 individuals, including 826 CAD cases (aged 67.27 ± 10.26 years) and 1153 non-CAD controls (aged 59.13 ± 10.51 years), were enrolled into the study. The genotypes were determined using a custom-by-design 48-Plex SNPscanTM Kit. The results showed that the BCL2 rs17757541 C>G polymorphism was associated with increased risk of CAD in homozygote comparison and recessive genetic model. However, no association between the other fifteen SNPs and CAD risk was observed. Stratified analyses indicated a significantly increased risk of CAD associated with the BCL2 rs17757541 C>G polymorphism among males and younger patients. Therefore, the results indicated that there is a close correlation between the BCL2 rs17757541 C>G polymorphism and CAD, which suggests that this SNP site should be further studied as a potential biomarker for CAD.
Keywords: BCL2; apoptosis; coronary artery disease; molecular epidemiology; polymorphism.