Association between APOE polymorphism and metabolic syndrome in Uyghur ethnic men

Objectives: This study aimed to examine the association between apolipoprotein E (APOE) polymorphism and metabolic syndrome (MetS) among Uyghur ethnic men in Xinjiang, China. Participants: A total of 482 patients with MetS and 510 healthy sex-matched and age-matched controls were recruited from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. The participants were subjected to routine physical and blood biochemical tests, and APOE genotyping was performed. Results: The APOE epsilon 3/3 was the predominant type, with a frequency of 71.8%, while epsilon 2/2 was less common than epsilon 4/4 in Uyghur males. The frequencies of the APOE2, epsilon 3 and epsilon 4 alleles in Uyghur males were 8.5%, 80.0% and 11.5%, respectively. However, the distribution of APOE genotypes was significantly different between the MetS and control groups (p<0.001). In the MetS group, the frequencies of the epsilon 2 and epsilon 4 alleles and the frequencies of the epsilon 2/2, epsilon 2/3 and epsilon 2/4 genotypes were significantly lower than those of the control group. Those individuals without the epsilon 2 and epsilon 4 alleles had higher MetS prevalence than the other gene carriers, and the ORs of these individuals developing MetS were 1.5 and 1.27 compared to the gene carriers. Triglyceride, serum total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were lower and serum high-density lipoprotein was higher in the epsilon 2 carriers than the epsilon 3 carriers, and the prevalence of MetS, central obesity, high blood pressure, hypercholesterolaemia and hypertriglyceridaemia was lower in the APOE2 group than in the APOE4 group. The risks of these individuals with epsilon 4 allele carriers getting these changes were 1.327, 1.780, 1.888, 1.428 and 2.571 times greater than those of epsilon 2 allele carriers. Conclusions: APOE4 is associated with many individual components of MetS, whereas APOE2 was associated with a reduced risk of MetS at the univariate level in Uyghur ethnic men.