Abstract: Objective To investigate the genetic relationship between the cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2) gene polymorphism and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in Northern Han Chinese. Methods The method of PCR- RFLP was conducted to examine the genotype of 3 cPLA2 genes ( PLA2G4A, PLA2G4B and PLA2G4C genes) in 263 subjects, including 121 cases of T2DM and 142 controls. The conditional test was used to test the combined effect of distinct loci on the T2DM by conditioning on allele (COA) or by conditioning on genotype (COG) with UNPHASED analysis platform. Results The genotypic frequencies of the 3 genes did not deviate from Hardy-weinberg equilibrium in both case and control groups. The allelic and genotypic frequencies of the 3 genes had no remarkable difference between case and control (P>0.05). The COG test revealed that T2DM was associated with the rs1648833-rs1549637 combination (P<0.05), but the COA test did not show such an association with the combination. Neither the COA test nor the COG showed that T2DM was associated with the BanISNP-rs1648833 and BanISNP-rs1549637 combination. In the combination of all 3 SNPs (BanISNP-rs1648833-rs1549637), the COA test and the COG test didn′t show an association (P>0.05). Conclusion cPLA2 gene polymorphism may be involved in the etiology of T2DM in Northern Han Chinese, although their effects are relatively small.

Key words: non-insulin-dependent, phospholipases A, polymorphism (genetics), gene