Association of CASZ1 genetic variants with stroke risk in the Chinese population.

Background: Stroke is a heterogeneous disease with multiple etiologies, placing a heavy burden on the world. Our purpose was to clarify the association between CASZ1 genetic variants and stroke risk in the Chinese population.

Methods: The Agena MassARRAY platform effectively genotyped three single nucleotide polymorphisms of CASZ1 in recruited 591 stroke patients and 553 healthy controls. Logistic regression genetic models were employed to evaluate the relationship between CASZ1 polymorphisms and stroke risk through odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Then, the interaction between CASZ1 variants was detected by multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR). Moreover, functional enrichment analyses of the CASZ1 gene were performed by Metascape.

Results: In this study, CASZ1 rs4845941 and rs778228 were significantly associated with an increased risk of stroke. In particular, the gender-stratified analysis also showed that rs778228 of CASZ1 had an association with higher stroke risk in females. The relationship between stroke susceptibility and the interaction models of rs4845941, rs778228, and rs17035539 forecasted by MDR were analyzed to improve the ability to predict stroke risk. Furthermore, we found CASZ1 and related genes might facilitate the occurrence of stroke.

Conclusions: This study demonstrated that CASZ1 genetic variants (rs4845941 and rs778228) contribute to the occurrence of stroke in the Chinese population, and therefore has important implications for treating and preventing stroke.