Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease affecting approximately one million individuals in the United States. Individuals with lupus are at an extremely increased risk (up to 50-fold) to develop coronary heart disease (CHD) compared to the general population. Traditional risk factors are insufficient to explain the increase in risk. The presence of anti-phospholipid antibodies (seen at a higher rate in SLE patients than in the general population) is suspected to play a role. CHD is the leading cause of death for both men and women of all ethnic groups in the United States. Understanding the genetic causes of CHD in high risk populations, such as individuals with SLE, can help facilitate the understanding of CHD in the general population. Due to the large public health significance of CHD, investigating the contributing factors and disease etiology could have a major impact on risk assessment and possible treatment of CHD. One gene involved in lipid metabolism, a major part of the development of atherosclerotic plaques and CHD, is paraoxonase-1 (PON1). PON1 encodes the enzyme paraoxonase, which inhibits the oxidation of low density lipoprotein (LDL) to help prevent its uptake by macrophages, thereby reducing the incidence of atherosclerotic plaques. Eight genetic variants in the PON1 gene were examined to determine their impact on SLE disease status, the presence of anti-phospholipid antibodies (APA), and PON activity. Polymorphisms in PON1 were not found to have a significant impact on SLE disease status or the presence of APA, however three of the polymorphisms studied were found to have a significant impact on PON activity. While SLE and CHD are complex diseases, likely resulting from gene-gene and gene-environment interactions, the identification of these associations between PON1 polymorphisms and PON activity may help to clarify the role of PON in CHD development and possibly lead to more accurate risk assessment and/or the investigation of treatment options for this common disease.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04142005-161032 |
| Date | 23 June 2005 |
| Creators | Tripi, Laura Margaretha |
| Contributors | M. Ilyas Kamboh, PhD, Candace Kammerer, PhD, Clareann Bunker, MPH, PhD |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04142005-161032/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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