BACKGROUND: Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a major microvascular complication of diabetes. Pentraxin 3 (PTX3) is a member of the acute-phase reactants superfamily and altered plasma levels of PTX3 are associated with DN. We performed a case-control study to analyze the relationship between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in PTX3 and the risk for DN in patients with type 2 diabetes.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study included 135 DN patients, 155 non-diabetic nephropathy (NDN) patients, and 152 normal controls (NC) (N=442). We genotyped eight PTX3 SNPs (rs2305619, rs2120243, rs1456099, rs7634847, rs1840680, rs2316706, rs2316709, and rs7616177) using the ABI PRISM SNapshot method.

RESULTS: The genotype frequencies of rs2305619 and rs2120243 differed significantly between the DN and the NDN groups (p=0.017 and p=0.033, respectively). Patients with the GG variant of rs2305619 showed 4.078-fold higher susceptibility to DN than those with the AA variant (OR=4.078, 95% CI=1.370–12.135, p=0.012); patients with the AA variant of rs2120243 had a lower risk of developing DN (OR=0.213, 95% CI=0.055–0.826, p=0.025). Haplotype analysis showed an association between the CAGGG haplotype in block 1 with DN (p=0.0319).

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggested that PTX3 polymorphisms were associated with an increased risk for DN in Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes.

Keywords: Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide