Association of CCR2 polymorphisms with the number of closed coronary artery vessels in coronary artery disease

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is one of the most common forms of heart disease. It has been demonstrated that chemokine-mediated inflammation is associated with the development of CAD. In this study, in order to determine the role of CCR2, a receptor for MCP-1, in the development of CAD, we initially sequenced and identified the genetic variants of CCR2 using 24 unrelated Korean individuals' DNA samples. A total of 13 genetic variants, including 1 deletion and 12 SNPs, were identified in the Korean population. Although we could not detect any association of CCR2 polymorphic markers with CAD, several SNP markers of CCR2 gene showed highly significant signals with the number of arteries with significant coronary artery stenosis in the CAD male patients. The most significant signal was detected at the SNP located at exon 2 (+ 780T > C, Asn260Asn) CI: 1.19–1.87, P = 0.0005 (odds ratio: 1.49, 95% CI: 1.19–1.87, p = 0.0005) (Table 3). This result indicates that CCR2 can play a role in the pathogenesis of CAD, especially to the number of vessels in CAD.