Genetic variants of the class A scavenger receptor gene are associated with coronary artery disease in Chinese

The class A scavenger receptor, encoded by the macrophage scavenger receptor 1 (MSR1) gene, is a pattern recognition receptor (PPR) primarily expressed in macrophages. It has been reported that genetic polymorphisms of MSR1 are significantly associated with the number of diseased vessels and coronary artery narrowing greater than 20% in Caucasians. However, whether it links genetically to coronary artery disease (CAD) in Chinese is not defined. Here, we performed an independent case-control study in a Chinese population consisting of 402 CAD cases and 400 controls by genotyping ten single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of MSR1. We found that rs416748 and rs13306541 were significantly associated with an increased risk of CAD with per allele odds ratio (OR) of 1.56 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.28-1.90; P < 0.001] and 1.70 (95% CI = 1.27-2.27; P < 0.001), respectively. Our results indicate that genetic variants of MSR1 may serve as predictive markers for the risk of CAD in combination with traditional risk factors of CAD in Chinese population.