Genetic association study between INSULIN pathway related genes and high myopia in a Han Chinese population

To investigate the association between insulin (INS) pathway related genes, including INS, insulin receptor (INSR), insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS1), insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2), IGF2 receptor (IGF2R) and IGF binding protein 1 (IGFBP1), and high myopia (HM) in a Han Chinese population, we have genotyped 24 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of these genes in this cohort by Sequenom MassARRAY method. The genotyping data was analyzed by chi(2) test and the linkage disequilibrium block structure was examined by Haploview software. SNPs in the INS-IGF2 region (rs2070762 and rs1003483), and the INSR gene (rs3745551 and rs2229429) showed significant association with HM (allelic P = 0.0085, 0.0494, 0.0171 and 0.0238, respectively). Under the model of risk genotype combination of INSR and IRS1, carrying the variant allele (A) of the IRS1 Gly972Arg SNP (rs1801278) further increased the risk among the rs2229429T allele carriers (odds ratio 6.865, 95 % confidence interval 1.533-30.745). None of the SNPs in the IGF2R and IGFBP1 genes were found to be significantly associated with HM. Genetic variants in the insulin signaling pathway genes may increase the susceptibility of high myopia in Han Chinese.