CFH (rs1410996), HTRA1 (rs112000638) and ARMS2 (rs10490923) gene polymorphisms are associated with AMD risk in Spanish patients.

PURPOSE

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the main cause of legal blindness in the western adult population. We investigated the association between SNPs located in CFH, ARMS2 and HTRA1 and AMD in Spanish patients.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

We obtained peripheral blood samples from 121 patients with a diagnosis of AMD (84 exudative and 37 atrophic) at the Department of Ophthalmology of the University Hospital of Salamanca. We took 91 subjects as a control group. We studied a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in each patient for each of the genes associated with high susceptibility to developing AMD using Real-time PCR with TaqMan probes for CFH and ARMS2 polymorphisms and PCR-RFLP for HTRA1 polymorphism.

RESULTS

We observed a statistically significant difference between patients and controls in the distribution of CFH rs1410996 genotypes, patients homozygous for the C-allele have twice the risk of developing the disease (p = 0.010; OR = 2,176 (1.194-3.964)). The analysis of ARMS2 rs10490923 polymorphism also showed differences in allelic distribution between the case and control groups (p < 0.001). Carriers of the T-allele appear more frequently in the group of patients (p < 0.001; O  = 3.340 (1.848-6.060)). Our results also confirm significant differences in the distribution of HTRA1 rs112000638 polymorphism with an increased representation of the G-allele in the patient's group (p < 0.001; OR = 6.254(3.463-12.280)). Our study also indicates that TTGG ARMS2/HTRA1 (rs10490923/rs112000638) haplotype increases the risk of developing AMD by 9 times.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results show that genotypes of ARMS2 (rs10490923), HTRA1 (rs112000638) and CFH (rs1410996) polymorphisms are related to an increased risk of suffering AMD in Spanish patients.