Association study of lipoprotein(a) genetic markers, traditional risk factors, and coronary heart disease in HIV-1-infected patients

Objectives: General population studies have shown associations between copy number variation (CNV) of the LPA gene Kringle-IV type-2 (KIV-2) coding region, single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs6415084 in LPA and coronary heart disease (CHD). Because risk factors for HIV-infected patients may differ from the general population, we aimed to assess whether these potential associations also occur in HIV-infected patients. Methods: A unicenter, retrospective, case–control (1:3) study. Eighteen HIV-patients with confirmed diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) were adjusted for age, gender, and time since HIV diagnosis to 54 HIV-patients without CHD. After gDNA extraction from frozen blood, both CNV and SNP genotyping were performed using real-time quantitative PCR. All genetic and non-genetic variables for AMI were assessed in a logistic regression analysis. Results: Our results did not confirm any association in terms of lipoprotein(a) LPA structural genetic variants when comparing KIV-2 CNV (p = 0.67) and SNP genotypes (p = 0.44) between AMI cases and controls. However, traditional risk factors such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and CD4(+) T cell count showed association (p < 0.05) with CHD. Conclusion: Although significant associations of AMI with diabetes, hypertension and CD4(+) T cell count in HIV-patients were found, this study could not confirm the feasibility neither of KIV-2 CNV nor rs6415084 in LPA as genetic markers of CHD in HIV-infected patients. Highlights: ● Individuals with HIV infection are at higher risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) than the non-infected population. ● Our results showed no evidence of LPA structural genetic variants associated with CHD in HIV-1-infected patients. ● Associations were found between diabetes mellitus, arterial hypertension, CD4(+) T cell count, and CHD. ● The clinical usefulness of these biomarkers to predict CHD in HIV-1-infected population remains unproven. ● Further studies are needed to assess the contribution of common genetic variations to CHD in HIV-infected individuals.