BACKGROUND

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is recognized to be closely associated with endoplasmic reticulum stress and mitochondrial dysfunction, while previous studies have emphasized the important role of calcium homeostasis from the mitochondria-associated endoplasmic reticulum membrane (MAM) in the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria. This article will assess the association between genetic polymorphisms of Ca transport proteins and molecular chaperones in MAM and NAFLD risk.

METHODS

A case-control study was conducted in a community of Nanjing, China during April to December 2020. 2701 subjects were enrolled and genotyped for 6 genetic variants in and genes. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess impact of these variants on NAFLD risk.

RESULTS

After adjusting for age, gender, total cholesterol and glucose, we identified that rs12009 variant genotypes (recessive model: OR= 0.801, 95% CI= 0.652-0.986, = 0.036), rs430397 variant genotypes (recessive model: OR= 0.546, 95% CI= 0.314-0.950, = 0.032), and rs11048570 variant genotypes (recessive model: OR= 0.673, 95% CI= 0.453-0.999, = 0.049) were associated with a reduced risk of NAFLD. Multivariate stepwise regression analysis indicated that gender, glucose, body mass index, triglycerides and favorable alleles were independent influencers of NAFLD (all < 0.05). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.764 (95% CI= 0.745-0.783, < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

The variant genotypes of Ca transport-associated genes (rs12009 and rs430397) and (rs11048570) might contribute to the reduction of the NAFLD risk in Chinese Han population, which can provide new insight into NAFLD pathogenesis.