Impacts of common variants in ALDH2 on coronary artery disease patients

• The variant rs671 in ALDH2 is associated with an increased risk of CAD in southern Chinese, while not in northern Chinese;
• We find that rs671 genotypes may not influence the outcomes and severity of CAD;
• No significant association was found between rs671 and blood glucose levels as well as plasma lipids.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified Aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) as a susceptibility locus for coronary artery disease (CAD) previously. However, the impacts of common variants in this gene on CAD and its outcomes have not been extensively studied. This study explored the association between the Tagging SNPs in ALDH2 and CAD as well as its main outcomes. Six common variants in ALDH2 were selected as tagging SNPs and two cohorts containing 7296 individuals were genotyped to investigate the impacts of ALDH2 on CAD and its main outcomes. The results show that the variant rs671 in ALDH2 is associated with an increased risk of CAD in southern Chinese (OR = 1.26, 95%CI: 1.07–1.48, p = 0.004), while not in northern Chinese (OR = 1.00, 95%CI: 0.86–1.50, p = 0.94). Meanwhile, we find that rs671 genotypes may not influence the outcomes of CAD (HR = 1.11, 95%CI: 0.892–1.38, p = 0.346). Additionally, we also tested the effect of rs671 genotype on CAD severity, while no significant association was found between them. In the subgroup analysis, the results revealed that rs671 were significantly associated with CAD (OR = 1.24, 95%CI: 1.11–1.38, p < 0.001) in non-alcoholic subjects. Overall, our findings indicate that the associations between rs671 in ALDH2 and CAD are regional disparity, and rs671 genotypes may not influence the main outcomes of CAD.