Phosphodiesterase 4D (PDE4D) gene variants and the risk of ischemic stroke in a South Indian population.

Stroke is the third largest cause of death and a major cause of adult disability and mortality worldwide. Experimental evidence suggests that genetic determinants do contribute a large part to stroke risk. The identification of phosphodiesterase 4D gene as a risk factor for stroke caused a great deal of interest in stroke genetics. Many of the studies of PDE4D gene have focused on the original Icelandic findings but the association between specific SNPs and haplotypes has been inconsistent. The aim of the present study was to investigate the association of three SNPs 32 (rs 456009), 83 (rs 966221) and 87 (rs 2910829), originally described by deCODE group; with stroke in a South Indian population from Andhra Pradesh. Two hundred and fifty ischemic stroke patients and two hundred and fifty controls were included in the study. The stroke patients were sub typed according to TOAST classification. SNP 83 showed significant association with stroke in the population under study while SNPs 87 and 32 were monomorphic. Further SNP 83 was found to be significantly associated with two stroke subtypes, intracranial large artery atherosclerosis (the most frequent subtype in the population) and small artery occlusion. The association with other subtypes was found to be insignificant. Further, SNP 83 was found to be associated significantly with some conventional stroke risk factors like diabetes and smoking.