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* Institute of Environmental Science and Human Life, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo 112-8610, Japan;
Center for Child Nutrition, Hochiminh, Vietnam; ** First Department of Internal Medicine, National Defense Medical College, Saitama 359-8513, Japan;
Omiya Medical Center, Jichi Medical School, Saitama 330-8503, Japan; and 
Department of Food and Nutrition, Japan Women's University, Tokyo 112-8681, Japan
1 To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rhirano{at}ndmc.ac.jp.
| ABSTRACT |
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3.8 times that in Caucasians. Overall, LPL 447X polymorphism was associated with a higher HDL-cholesterol concentration (7.4%, P = 0.007) and a lower triglyceride concentration (13.6%, P = 0.04) than LPL 447S. The apoCIII S2 polymorphism was not associated with an increase in the plasma triglyceride concentration in Vietnamese girls with a low fat intake. However, due to the high frequency of the apoCIII SstI polymorphism and the increasingly westernized diet in Vietnam, attention should be paid to the interaction of genotype with the Vietnamese diet.
KEY WORDS: lipoprotein lipase S447X apolipoprotein CIII SstI HDL-cholesterol triglyceride Vietnamese
The plasma concentrations of triglyceride (TG)2 and HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C) have been considered independent risk factors for coronary artery disease (CAD) (13). Several prospective epidemiological studies have shown an inverse relation between the risk of CAD and the plasma HDL-C concentration (46). The association of common gene variants within the candidate genes regulating TG and HDL metabolism might thus be an important factor in CAD. Lipoprotein lipase (LPL) is a multifunctional protein that hydrolyzes core TG from circulating chylomicron and VLDL (7). During this process, surface free cholesterol and phospholipids are transferred to HDL particles, thereby increasing the concentration of HDL-C (8). The S447X mutation in exon 9, which truncates the LPL protein by 2 amino acids (Ser-Gly), is common in the general population (9). This polymorphism was found to relate to high HDL-C, low TG concentrations, and to help prevent premature CAD (10).
Apolipoprotein CIII (apoCIII), which is a major component of TG-rich lipoproteins (chylomicron and VLDL), has been shown in vitro to be an inhibitor of LPL (11,12). The first reported polymorphism in the apoCIII gene was the Sstl polymorphism in the 3' untranslated region of the gene (13). This polymorphism is caused by a C
G change at position 3238. An SstI polymorphism in the 3' untranslated region of the apoCIII gene was also reported to be associated with the higher plasma TG concentration and CAD in a number of studies (1416), but not in others (17). Therefore, depending on the ethnic-geographical origin of the studied population, it appears that additional genetic or environmental factors play a role in the potential associations of these polymorphisms.
An increasing intake of energy and fat has contributed to the increasing mortality and morbidity due to CAD in Vietnam (18,19). In addition to dietary changes, whether Vietnamese people have any genetic risk factors for atherosclerosis, such as high plasma TG and low HDL-C concentrations, or a protective gene against atherosclerosis, has yet to be elucidated. The aim of this study was to determine whether LPL S447X and apoCIII SstI polymorphisms exist, and to determine whether they affect plasma lipid and lipoprotein concentrations in 2 groups of Vietnamese girls with different dietary intakes due to living in urban or rural areas.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Laboratory analyses. Fasting blood samples were obtained in EDTA-coated vacutainer tubes during clinical examinations of the girls. The samples were stored at 80°C until analysis. The plasma total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C), HDL-C, and TG concentrations were determined by standard laboratory methods (Daiichi Pure Chemicals) using a medical autoanalyzer (BioMajesty, JCA-BM2250, JEOL).
Anthropometric and dietary intake measurements. Anthropometric measurements, including the body weight, height, and left mid-arm circumference, were taken according to a standardized protocol, by nutritionists who worked at the Ho Chi Minh Center for Child Nutrition (20). The BMI (kg/m2) was calculated from the baseline measurements of body weight and height. The body fat was measured using a bioelectric impedance method on a body fat analyzer TBF-511 (Tanita).
Dietary intake was measured by a single dietitian-administered 24-h recall/child during 3 consecutive days, using food models of food portion sizes, photographs, a common set of household measures, and a food-weighing scale to facilitate the estimate of portion size. The parents were requested to recall what their children consumed during the previous day. Three consecutive days were chosen, excluding weekends and special events. All dietitians worked at the Ho Chi Minh Center for Child Nutrition in Vietnam. The nutrient intake was calculated using a Vietnam Eiyokun software package, version 08.E, developed by Dr. Yukio Yoshimura, Shikoku University, Japan (21). Excel Eiyokun data were obtained from the Nutritive Composition Table of Vietnamese Food (22), an official database used for calculating nutrient intake that was developed by the National Institute of Nutrition in Vietnam. The Vietnamese standard recommended dietary allowances (RDA) was used to estimate the nutrient intake status (23).
LPL S447X and apoCIII SstI polymorphism genotyping. Genomic DNA was isolated from 2 mL of whole blood obtained from the subjects using a commercially available kit (QIA amp DNA Mini Blood Kit, QIAGEN). We used the Invader assay to screen for the presence of LPL S447X and apoCIII SstI polymorphisms. The Invader assay combines structure-specific cleavage enzymes and a universal fluorescent resonance energy transfer system, with details described elsewhere (24,25).
Statistical analyses. The allele frequency of LPL S477X and apoCIII SstI were estimated by gene counting. A chi-square test was used to examine the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (26) for the presence of LPL S447X and apoCIII SstI polymorphisms. Continuous variables were expressed as means ± SD, and 2-way ANOVA was used to test the effects of genotype, environment, and their interaction on the variables measured. Statistical procedures were performed using the StatView statistical program 5.0 (SAS Institute). Differences were considered significant at P < 0.05.
| RESULTS |
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7.2 MJ/d) was nearly adequate to the Vietnamese RDA (7.5 MJ/d), whereas that of rural girls (
5.0 MJ/d) did not reach the Vietnamese RDA (Table 2). The percentage of energy intake from fat was
22% in urban girls but only 16% in rural girls (P < 0.0001). Fat intake of the rural girls was much lower than the Vietnamese RDA (2025% of total energy intake). The nutritional status and anthropometric variables did not differ among the LPL genotype subgroups for either urban or rural girls.
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| DISCUSSION |
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The frequency of the LPL 447X allele mutation ranged from 0.085 to 0.11 in all populations (10). Compared with other populations, the frequency of this polymorphism in Vietnamese girls is similar to that in Japanese (27) and Chinese (28) in Asia and to that in Caucasians (29,30).
The LPL S447X polymorphism is different from the other known LPL polymorphisms because it does not cause an increase in the plasma TG concentration (10). Our results were compatible with those of other studies of adult Caucasian populations that showed the LPL 447X polymorphism to be related to a protective lipid profile for CAD (9,10,29,30). Even in rural Vietnamese girls who have low energy and low fat intakes and low plasma lipid concentrations, LPL 447X still affected the plasma lipid concentrations. The effect of the LPL 447X allele on the HDL-C and TG concentrations therefore seems to be independent of any difference in the nutritional status of Vietnamese girls compared with Caucasians. This finding was inconsistent with an American cohort study (the Bogalusa study) (31), which investigated 829 subjects aged 518 y at baseline and followed them for a mean of 18.8 y. The Bogalusa study showed that LPL 447X allele carriers have higher plasma HDL-C and lower TG concentrations than noncarriers in adulthood, but not in childhood. This discrepancy may be due to the fact that the age of the subjects in the Bogalusa study ranged from 5 to 18 y, whereas those in our study ranged from 7 to 9 y. We used female children at the age ranging rrom 79 y to eliminate any confounding effects of age, sex, smoking, and medications on the relation between genes and the plasma lipid concentrations.
The SstI site (3238C > G) in the 3' untranslated region of the apoCIII gene was first described in 1983 (13), and its association with hypertriglyceridemia has been confirmed in a majority of studies as well as in a review (32). However, no relation between apoCIII SstI polymorphisms and plasma TG concentration was found in Vietnamese girls. The frequency of the apoCIII SstI S2 allele in the Vietnamese was similar to other Asians, such as Japanese (27), Chinese (33), and Koreans (34). In contrast, this frequency was
3.8 times that found in Caucasians, according to the Framingham Offspring Study (35).
ApoCIII SstI polymorphism has been associated with a high plasma apoCIII and hypertriglyceridemia in several, but not all studies. Our study showed that apoCIII SstI polymorphism was not related to high plasma TG concentration. To date, studies on SstI polymorphism have mostly been carried out in adults. There was one previous study on 503 healthy Italian children (aged 1113 y) that showed that children with an S1S2 genotype have a 12.7% higher plasma TG concentration than their S1S1 peers (16). The Framingham study was carried out on 2485 healthy Caucasians (mean age
52 y) and showed the TG concentration to be insignificantly higher in men carriers of the S2 allele (35). Another Italian study on 800 patients showed S2 carriers to have significantly higher plasma TG and apoCIII concentrations (36). A recent study of 2267 Japanese adults showed a higher TG concentration in S2 allele carriers, but the change of age- and sex-adjusted means was not significant (27). Other studies of adult Taiwanese-Chinese (mean age
55 y) and adult Koreans (mean age
40 y) did not mention the relation between apoCIII polymorphism and the plasma TG concentration but it did show the frequency of the apoCIII S2 allele to be higher in subjects with hypertriglycemia than in controls (42.5 vs. 30% in Taiwanese and 36.5 vs. 24.5% in Koreans, respectively) (33,34). Discrepancies among results reported in the literature could be due to geneenvironment interactions, such as those described for dietary fat consumption (37). So far, the effects of apoCIII SstI polymorphism on the plasma lipid and lipoprotein concentrations and the relation between apoCIII SstI polymorphism and hypertriglyceridemia were investigated in other populations with profiles of both a high dietary intake and high plasma lipid and lipoprotein concentrations, such as in Caucasians (3537) and Japanese (27), and were also investigated in a case-control design in subjects with high TG concentrations (33,34). To our knowledge, our findings indicate, for the first time, that apoCIII SstI polymorphism does not effect the TG concentration in girls with low nutritional status and low plasma lipid concentrations. We hypothesized that the stronger effect of apoCIII on plasma TG concentrations that was reported in other populations might be the result of an interaction between the gene and the westernized environment, a factor not present in the majority of our study subjects. The frequency of the S2 allele in Asians was 3.8 times the frequency found in Caucasians. The role of apoCIII polymorphism in hypertriglycemia should therefore be paid close attention to in Vietnamese people due to the trend of a high-energy diet pattern.
In conclusion, LPL S447X polymorphism influenced the plasma HDL-C and TG concentrations, whereas no effect of apoCIII SstI polymorphism on the TG concentration was observed in Vietnamese girls with a low fat intake. However, due to the high frequency of this polymorphism and the increasingly westernized diet in Vietnam, its role in hyperlipidemia and CAD still needs further investigation.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| FOOTNOTES |
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Manuscript received 16 December 2005. Initial review completed 29 December 2005. Revision accepted 1 March 2006.
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