Obstructive Sleep Apnea in European-Americans and African-Americans:Gene Study Findings

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is hypothesized to be influenced by genes within pathways involved with obesity, craniofacial development, inflammation and ventilatory control. We conducted the first candidate gene study of OSA using family data from European-Americans and African-Americans, selecting biologically plausible genes from within these pathways.

Methods

1080 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped in 729 African-Americans and 505 SNPs were genotyped in 694 European-Americans. Coding for SNPs additively, association testing on the apnea hypopnea index (AHI) as a continuous trait and OSA as a dichotomous trait (AHI 15) was conducted using methods that account for familial correlations in models adjusted for age, age-squared, and sex, with and without body mass index. Read the rest of this entry