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1From the Department of Ophthalmology, The Royal Group of Hospitals, Belfast, United Kingdom; the 2Centre for Vision Science and the 3Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Queens University, Belfast, United Kingdom; and the 4Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, University of Ulster, Coleraine, United Kingdom.
| Abstract |
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METHODS. DNA was obtained from 58 patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG), 76 with normal tension glaucoma (NTG), and 38 control subjects. Polymerase chain reactions (PCR) were used to compare the frequency of the alleles between the subjects with glaucoma and the control subjects and the subjects with glaucoma with vasospasm or migraine. The PCR product was sequenced to identify the frequency of the T786C mutation.
RESULTS. The distribution of the NOS3 repeat alleles in subjects with glaucoma and control subjects just failed to reach statistical significance (P = 0.06). The distribution in subjects with NTG or POAG did not differ significantly. A significant difference was found (P < 0.001) in the distribution of allele frequencies of the NOS3 marker in subjects who had glaucoma with migraine versus control subjects. There were no differences in the distribution of the NOS2A or ET-1 markers between the subjects with glaucoma and the control subjects.
CONCLUSIONS. This study provides evidence of an association between the NOS3 gene and subjects with glaucoma who have a history of migraine. Unlike in other studies, no evidence was found of an association between ET-1 and glaucoma.
Nitric oxide (NO) maintains the basal vasodilator tone. It is synthesized in the vascular endothelium through the action of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (NOS) on the substrate L-arginine (eNOS, or NOS3).8 NOS isoforms are found in ocular tissues, and the role of NO in regulating the circulation in this organ is undisputed. Systemic inhibition of NOS reduces the pulsatile choroidal blood flow in young, healthy volunteers.9 Substantial evidence implicates abnormalities in NOS expression and regulation in disorders that affect the microcirculation of the eye and other organs. First, abnormalities in vasodilatory responses have been shown in the microcirculation of the forearm in patients with NTG.10 Second, 20% of patients with familial POAG have a polymorphism in the 5' flanking region of the eNOS gene,11 suggesting that this polymorphism may alter eNOS expression and thus NO synthesis. Third, NOS mutations have been implicated in vasospastic disease elsewhere in the body, and a study of NOS3 discovered a mutant allele (T786C) in 28% of subjects with coronary spasm, with only 7% of control subjects exhibiting this mutation.12 In this study, carriage of the mutant allele conferred the highest risk for coronary spasm, followed by cigarette smoking, leading the investigators to conclude that the presence of the mutant allele reduced NO synthesis and that carriership predisposed to coronary spasm.
Endothelin (ET)-1 is a potent vasoactive peptide that induces strong vasoconstriction in the vascular bed13 and has been implicated in systemic vasospastic disorders.14 15 Increased plasma levels of ET-116 and abnormal postural responses to ET-117 have been documented in patients with NTG, suggesting a dysfunctional endothelium in such individuals. Investigations of ET-1 pathophysiology with respect to the eye suggest that abnormalities exist in experimental models and in subgroups of patients with glaucoma.16 17 18 19 20
Based on the foregoing, we postulated that polymorphic variability in genes involved in the regulation of vasoactive agents could alter susceptibility to glaucoma. We selected the two isoforms of NOS that are expressed in the vasculatureNOS3 and NOS2Aand the vasoconstrictor ET-1 as candidate genes for the present study. Our purpose was to examine the association between the frequency distribution of alleles of genetic markers for NOS3, NOS2A, and ET-1 in patients with NTG or POAG and in control subjects without glaucoma. We also chose to examine the frequency of the T786C mutation in the disease population relative to control subjects. The subjects with glaucoma with a history of migraine or vasospastic symptoms were of particular interest and were analyzed as subgroups.
| Methods |
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Criteria for selection of subjects with NTG were identical, except median IOP was required to be <21 mm Hg on a diurnal curve of no fewer than five readings, in both eyes. One spike of 24 mm Hg was accepted.
Exclusion criteria were a history of diabetes or other ocular diseases that may damage the optic nerve, presence of age-related macular degeneration or any other retinal disease, and a history of intraocular surgery apart from cataract extraction and trabeculectomy.
Control subjects were recruited among the general population and spouses of patients with glaucoma and through referrals from optometrists. Participants were accepted as control subjects when IOP was <21 mm Hg bilaterally, with open anterior chamber angles, bilateral healthy optic nerve heads and healthy fundi, and a visual field test with the Humphrey 24-2 full-threshold strategy showing no evidence of glaucomatous defects. Exclusion criteria were intraocular surgery (apart from cataract surgery), a positive family history of glaucoma, and the presence of diabetes.
All subjects had a spherical refractive error of <7 D, astigmatism of <2 D, and visual acuity of better than 0.3 logMAR (logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution) in at least one eye. The peak IOP of each subject was obtained from hospital case records. A detailed medical history of each subject was obtained, including a history of migraine headaches and the subjective temperature of their extremities. Subjects who responded that their hands or feet go white and numb in the cold were recorded as having peripheral vasospastic symptoms. Subjects were asked if they had a first-degree relative with glaucoma.
DNA Extraction
Ten milliliters of blood was obtained from each of the subjects participating in the study. A DNA isolation kit (Puregene; Gentra Systems, Minneapolis, MN) was used to isolate DNA from whole blood by using standard methodology. A PCR System (GeneAmp; Applied Biosystems, Inc. [ABI], Foster City, CA) was used to perform the PCR reactions. After amplification, the PCR product was size fractionated by electrophoresis on a genetic analyzer (Prism 3100; ABI). To identify the frequency of the T786C mutation in the NOS3 gene, the PCR products were sequenced with the genetic analyser. The primers for each of the candidate genes and the T786C mutation in the NOS3 gene are displayed in Table 1 .
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2 tests were used to test for differences in demographic and clinical parameters between cases and control subjects, with a significance level of 0.05. Allele frequencies were compared between subjects with glaucoma and control subjects, with the
2 test for 2 x n tables, where n is the number of alleles. Rare alleles were pooled so that all expected cell values were greater than 2. P < 0.05 was considered significant. When this initial comparison of groups yielded a significant result, each allele was considered on its own, with the other alleles pooled to give a series of 2 x 2 tables. A Bonferroni correction was applied to take into account the number of alleles (m) considered. The probabilities for such tests are reported in both uncorrected (P) and corrected (Pc = mP) form. The odds ratio and 95% confidence interval were calculated to examine the association of the alleles with disease status. We investigated the combinations of the NOS3 promoter polymorphism and the microsatellite marker (haplotypes) in the glaucoma patients with migraine versus control subjects, by using the PHASE program (ver. 2).24
Sample Size
The planned study size of 130 subjects with glaucoma and 40 control subjects was sufficient to detect a 20% difference in the allele frequencies between subjects with glaucoma and control subjects for an allele with a frequency of 10% in control subjects, with 80% power at the 5% significance level (and incorporating the Bonferroni correction for the multiple testing of an anticipated 10 alleles).
| Results |
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NOS3
The frequencies of NOS3 marker alleles in patients with glaucoma and control subjects are shown in Table 3 . After rare alleles were pooled, the distribution of alleles just failed to reach significance (P = 0.06).
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The frequency of the T786C mutation of the NOS3 gene in our disease population is shown in Table 5 . The frequencies of the genotypes did not depart significantly from those predicted by the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. There were no significant differences in the incidence of the mutant allele between the subjects with glaucoma and the control subjects (odds ratio, 0.96; 95% CI: 0.541.72) or the subjects with glaucoma with migraine and the control subjects (odds ratio, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.381.97).
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NOS2A
There were no significant differences between subjects with glaucoma and control subjects in the distribution of the allele frequencies for the NOS2A marker (Table 6) . When subjects with glaucoma with peripheral vasospastic symptoms and migraine were compared against control subjects, there were no significant differences in the distribution of the allele frequencies for the NOS2A marker.
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| Discussion |
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The following observations support the hypothesis of a dysfunction of the endothelium-mediated vasodilatory response in glaucoma. The pulsatile element of choroidal blood flow has been shown to reduce after systemic infusion of L-NMMA (NG-monomethyl-L-arginine; a competitive inhibitor of NO synthase) in healthy volunteers,9 leading the investigators to speculate that systemic endothelial dysfunction, such as that found in diabetes or hypertension, may affect ocular hemodynamics. It has been shown that patients with glaucoma have a significantly lower increase in forearm blood flow than do control subjects after infusion of acetylcholine (an endothelial-dependent vasodilator).10
On examination of polymorphic variability in the genes encoding constitutive NOS (NOS3 or eNOS), a difference that was of borderline significance was observed in the distribution of its alleles between subjects with glaucoma and control subjects. Our findings are therefore partly in accord with an association study that found 20% of those with familial POAG had a polymorphism in the 5' flanking region of the NOS3 gene.11 This study included subjects with POAG only (IOP greater than 21 mm Hg). Because we investigated two markers in the same gene, we were able to undertake haplotype analysis. The results of this analysis were in accord with the findings. The differential distribution of NOS3 alleles may reflect in a change in NOS3 expression that alters the NO concentration.
Subjects with migraine are believed to have a dysfunctional vasodilatory response that may be linked to polymorphisms in the NOS3 gene. Consistent with this observation, the present study found that the distribution of NOS3 alleles was significantly different in subjects who had glaucoma with migraine when compared with control subjects without glaucoma. The Collaborative Normal-Tension Glaucoma Study found that patients with migraine, particularly women, had a more rapid course of glaucoma progression than those without a history of migraine.25 However, a study in which the NOS3 gene was investigated in migraine etiology found no association or linkage.26 Therefore, although migraine is a risk factor for glaucoma, it is likely that many other predisposing factors exist.
In the present study, unlike the Japanese coronary spasm study, there was no difference in the frequency of the abnormal allele in the T786C mutation of the NOS3 gene in our subjects with glaucoma.12
We specifically investigated the gene encoding NOS2A because it has been proposed that excessive NO released by astrocytes through increased expression of this gene damages the axons of the retinal ganglion cells.27 NOS2A is mainly expressed in response to injury, inflammation, and ischemia in vascular or nonvascular cells. In the study by Neufeld that used a rat model with elevated IOP, inhibition of NOS2A protected against axon loss. However, in the present study we did not find differences in the distribution of NOS2A in subjects with glaucoma and control subjects.
Despite the evidence suggesting that ET-1 plays a role in the pathogenesis of glaucoma,16 18 20 28 the present study found no evidence to support such an association, as the distribution of allele frequencies for an ET-1 gene marker did not differ between subjects with glaucoma and the control population. However, we only tested one marker, and our sample size was small, therefore the possibility of an effect cannot be discounted.
The major strength of the present study is the careful phenotyping of patients with glaucoma and clear definitions to separate cases from control subjects. To the best of our knowledge despite exhaustive Medline searching, no similar studies were identified. In summary, the present study has demonstrated differences in the distribution of NOS3 alleles in a glaucoma population compared with a control group. We believe that additional studies on separate populations are needed to confirm this association.
| Acknowledgements |
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| Footnotes |
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Submitted for publication March 23, 2005; accepted April 11, 2005.
Disclosure: J.F.J. Logan, None; U. Chakravarthy, None; A.E. Hughes, None; C.C. Patterson, None; J.A. Jackson, None; S.J.A. Rankin, None
The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. This article must therefore be marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C.
1734 solely to indicate this fact.
Corresponding author: Joanne F. J. Logan, Department of Ophthalmology, The Royal Group of Hospitals, Belfast, United Kingdom; joanne.logan1{at}btopenworld.com.
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