Detection of m6A-associated SNPs as potential functional variants for coronary artery disease.

AIM: To investigate the effects of m6A-single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on coronary artery disease (CAD).

METHODS

We examined the association of m6A-SNPs with CAD in about 185,000 cases and controls and further performed eQTL and differential expression analyses to support the identified m6A-SNPs.

RESULTS

Among the 4390 m6A-SNPs detected, 304 seemed to be associated with CAD (p < 0.05). SNP rs12286 was significantly associated with CAD at genome-wide level (p = 4.5 × 10-9). rs12286 was predicted to influence m6A methylation and have the potential to alter regulatory motifs binding, which may in turn regulate the expression of ADAMTS7 (p = 1.26 × 10-8).

CONCLUSION

The present study found plenty of CAD-associated m6A-SNPs and demonstrated the potential functionality of the identified SNPs.