Angiotensin converting enzyme DD genotype not associated with increased risk of coronary artery disease in the Iranian population.

The coronary artery disease (CAD) is of the main causes of heart failure and there is evidence supporting the association of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) gene insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism and the susceptibility to CAD. Therefore, the relevance of ACE polymorphism for CAD was determined in the Iranian population. 487 age-matched individuals including 224 patients with >50% angiographically established coronary stenosis and 263 healthy subjects genotyped for ACE gene I/D polymorphism by a standard method. Paraclinical characteristics including lipid profile were also determined for both groups. While the systolic (p<0.0001) and diastolic (p<0.0001) blood pressure, serum cholesterol (p<0.005) and LDL-C (p<0.05) were significantly increased in CAD patients, our results show that there was no increased risk of CAD in association with DD genotype in Iranian population. Allele frequencies were also similar in both groups. Although, we found a significant difference in ID (p<0.005) and II (p<0.05) genotype between patients and healthy subjects. The present study showed that DD genotype does not increase the CAD susceptibility in the studied Iranian population and may not be as a risk factor. Therefore, further studies together with the other polymorphisms of ACE gene may be required to determine the relation between cardiovascular disease susceptibility and ACE genetic variations in Iranian population.