Genetic variation in the Mcp-1 gene promoter associated with the risk of polycystic ovary syndrome

PLoS One. 2015 Apr 22;10(4):e0123045. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0123045. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) is a pivotal chemokine in the inflammatory response, which plays an important role in recruiting monocytes to sites of injury and infection. However, the exact mechanism of Mcp-1 associated with PCOS risk was unknown. In this study, we explored whether the Mcp-1 -2518G>A polymorphism increases the risk of PCOS. We performed a comparative study of -2518G>A polymorphism of the Mcp-1 gene with PCOS. In addition, luciferase reporter assay was performed to evaluate the Mcp-1 transcriptional activity. A strong association was observed between the -2518G>A polymorphism of Mcp-1 gene and PCOS (p-value = 0.016, odd ratio (OR) = 0.693). A p-value under 0.05 is considered statistically significant. The genotype and allelic frequencies were assumed to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE). The luciferase assays in 2 cell lines showed that the Mcp-1 -2518G>A substitution can increase the expression of Mcp-1. MCP-1 levels in serum for PCOS group were significantly higher than those in serum for controls (p-value = 0.02). Furthermore, the patients carrying a genotype A/A had significantly increased levels of MCP-1 in serum compared with levels of the MCP-1 of the patients with genotypes G/G and G/A (p-value = 0.031). This is the first study on the genetic variation of the Mcp-1 gene and PCOS. This finding suggests that the Mcp-1 -2518G>A polymorphism is associated with PCOS risk by affecting transcriptional activity, leading to an increased expression level of Mcp-1.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Chemokine CCL2 / genetics*
  • Female
  • Genetic Predisposition to Disease / genetics*
  • Humans
  • Polycystic Ovary Syndrome / genetics*
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide*
  • Promoter Regions, Genetic / genetics*
  • Transcription, Genetic / genetics

Substances

  • CCL2 protein, human
  • Chemokine CCL2

Grants and funding

This study was supported by a grant from BK21 program of the Ministry of Education, Republic of Korea. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.