PRDM16 rs2651899 variant is a risk factor for Chinese common migraine patients.

Objective: Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified 3 loci in or near PRDM16 (1p36.32, rs2651899), LRP1 (12q13.3, rs11172113) and TRPM8 (2q37.1, rs10166942) in the population-based Women's Genome Health Study (WGHS) of migraine, and 2 loci in or near TRPM8 and LRP1 were repeated in European GWAS study. To evaluate whether the same variants are related to migraine in Chinese population, we investigated migraine with aura (MA) and migraine without aura (MO) patients of Chinese Han ethnicity in mainland China.

Methods: A case-control study in a cohort of 207 migraine cases and 205 ethnically matched controls was conducted by using the dual-color fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) probes analysis.

Results: The genotypes of all polymorphisms in 2 groups followed the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. We found significant differences in allele distribution of rs2651899 variant in PRDM16 between MO patients and control subjects (P = .049, OR = 1.335, 95%CI 1.001-1.782), and there were no difference between MA patients and controls in the frequency of genotype and allele. Also, no significant differences in genotypic and allelic distributions between MA or MO patients and controls were observed in the polymorphisms of rs10166942 of TRPM8 and rs11172113 of LRP1, and there was no significant difference comparing male with female in all loci.

Conclusion: Our data suggested that rs2651899 variant in PRDM16 plays a potential role in Chinese MO migraine susceptibility, and gender may not play a role.