LAUSR

Objectives: TWIK-related acid-sensitive K+ channel-3 was reported to be a risk factor for OSA in animal models. The present study aimed to evaluate the relationship between human TASK-3 gene polymorphisms and obstructive sleep apnea in patients with hypertension. Methods: 176 subjects with non-OSA and 169 subjects with severe OSA by full night polysomnography were selected. And we chose three represent single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) such as rs2615374, rs3808403 and rs888345, according to principle of linkage disequilibrium (r2 > 0.8) and minimum allele frequency (MAF) > 5%. Blood samples were collected from all subjects and genotyping of the 3 SNPs was performed by Kompetitive Allele Specifc PCR. Results: The significant differences in additive model (P = 0.047), alleles (P = 0.014) and dominant model (P = 0.02) of rs2615374 were observed between severe and non OSA subjects. The distributions of additive (P = 0.005) and dominant model (P = 0.015) of rs3808403 were also significantly different between two groups. CT+TT genotype of rs3808403 was considered as risk factors for Severe OSA (CT+TT: [OR] = 2.09, 95%CI: 1.13–3.88, P = 0.019). In addition, mutant group of rs2615374 and rs3808403 showed significantly higher triglyceride levels than wild group. Conclusion: Our study suggested that the polymorphisms of rs2615374 and rs3808403 in the TASK-3 gene were associated with OSA, and CT+TT genotype of rs3808403 locus was a risk factor for severe OSA among the Chinese people. However, further studies should be conducted to confirm this association.