Identification of STXBP2 as a novel susceptibility locus for myocardial infarction in Japanese individuals by an exome-wide association study

We performed exome-wide association studies to identify genetic variants—in particular, low-frequency variants with a large effect size—that confer susceptibility to coronary artery disease or myocardial infarction in Japanese. The exome-wide association studies were performed with 12,698 individuals (3488 subjects with coronary artery disease including 2438 with myocardial infarction, 9210 controls) and with the use of the Illumina HumanExome-12 DNA Analysis or Infinium Exome-24 BeadChip. The relation of allele frequencies for 41,339 single nucleotide polymorphisms that passed quality control to coronary artery disease or myocardial infarction was examined with Fisher's exact test. The exome-wide association study for coronary artery disease revealed that 126 single nucleotide polymorphisms were significantly (P <1.21 × 10(−6)) associated with this condition. Multivariable logistic regression analysis with adjustment for age, sex, and the prevalence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and dyslipidemia showed that six of these polymorphisms were related (P < 0.01) to coronary artery disease, but none was significantly (P < 9.92 × 10(−5)) associated with this condition. The exome-wide association study for myocardial infarction revealed that 114 single nucleotide polymorphisms were significantly (P <1.21 × 10(−6)) associated with this condition. Multivariable logistic regression analysis with adjustment for covariates revealed that nine of these polymorphisms were related (P < 0.01) to myocardial infarction. Among these nine polymorphisms, rs188212047 [G/T (L212F)] of STXBP2 was significantly (dominant model; P = 4.84 × 10(−8); odds ratio, 2.94) associated with myocardial infarction. STXBP2 may thus be a novel susceptibility locus for myocardial infarction in Japanese.