Does genome-wide association analysis of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in the population-based KORA study shed new light on intergenic regions?
The present genome-wide association study identified 2 interesting HDLC-relevant regions upstream of CETP and downstream of LIPG. This draws attention to the importance of long-range effects of intergenic regions, which have been underestimated so far, and may impact future candidate-gene-association studies toward extending the region analyzed. Furthermore, the present study reinforced CETP and LPL as HDLC genes and thereby underscores the power of this type of genome-wide association approach to pinpoint associations of common polymorphisms with effects explaining as little as 0.5% of the HDLC variance in the general population.
Our findings clearly indicate an inverse correlation between RKIP level and the degree of the liver injury and fibrosis. The decrease in RKIP expression may exacerbate chronic liver injury and liver fibrosis.