Objective: Osteoporosis is a serious and common health issue of considerable complexity among postmenopausal women. The osteoprotegerin gene (OPG) is considered to play an important role in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis. The objective of this study was to detect single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the OPG gene and assess the association between bone mineral density (BMD) and SNPs in postmenopausal women.
Methods: BMD was measured at the lumbar spine (L₂₋₄), neck, and total hip by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA). The polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP), created restriction site-PCR (CRS-PCR), and DNA sequencing methods were used to identify the g.19163A>G and g.23298T>C polymorphisms and genotypes in 739 Chinese postmenopausal women.
Results: Our data suggest that g.19163A>G was significantly associated with adjusted spine BMD, neck hip BMD, and total hip BMD. Subjects with genotype AA had significantly higher BMD value than those of genotypes AG and GG (P <0.05). We failed to detect any statistically significant association between g.23298T>C and adjusted spine BMD and neck hip BMD, while it almost reached a significant association with the adjusted total hip BMD (P = 0.058).
Discussion: These findings indicate that the OPG gene is related to BMD and osteoporosis in Chinese postmenopausal women.