GST null polymorphisms may affect the risk of coronary artery disease: evidence from a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Whether glutathione S-transferase (GST) null polymorphisms, namely GSTM1 null, GSTP1 null and GSTT1 null polymorphisms, influence the risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) or not remains unclear. Thus, the authors performed a meta-analysis to more robustly estimate associations between GST null polymorphisms and the risk of CAD by integrating the results of previous publications. METHODS: Medline, Embase, Wanfang, VIP and CNKI were searched comprehensively for eligible studies, and 45 genetic association studies were finally selected to be included in this meta-analysis. RESULTS: We found that GSTM1 null polymorphism was significantly associated with the risk of CAD in overall population (OR = 1.37, p = 0.003) and mixed population (OR = 1.61, p = 0.004), GSTP1 null polymorphism was significantly associated with the risk of CAD in overall population (OR = 1.23, p = 0.03), whereas GSTT1 null polymorphism was significantly associated with the risk of CAD in overall population (OR = 1.23, p = 0.02), Caucasians (OR = 1.23, p = 0.02) and East Asians (OR = 1.38, p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: This meta-analysis demonstrated that GSTM1 null, GSTP1 null and GSTT1 null polymorphisms were all significantly associated with an increased risk of CAD.