Association between vitamin D receptor polymorphisms and susceptibility to Parkinson's disease: An updated meta-analysis

Abstract

The relationships between vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene polymorphisms, particularly ApaI, BsmI, FokI, and TaqI, and Parkinson's disease (PD) has received increasing attention in the research community. However, as the results yielded by this increased research have hitherto conflicted, we performed an updated meta-analysis of reports on the relationships between VDR polymorphisms and PD published before October 2019 that we collected from the PUBMED, EMBASE, EBSCO, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang databases. The ten articles that met our screening criteria included 2782 patients and 3194 healthy controls. All the data that we received were analyzed with Stata 12.0 statistical software. The odds ratio (OR) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) were used to determine the relationship between VDR gene diversity and PD. While we did not find a significant correlation between the ApaI, BsmI, and TaqI polymorphisms and the risk of PD in any of the considered genetic models, we found a clear association between the FokI polymorphism and susceptibility to PD (C vs. T: OR = 1.246, 95 % CI: 1.101–1.411, P = 0; CC vs. TT: OR = 1.630, 95 % CI: 1.243–2.139, P = 0; CT vs. TT: OR = 1.382, 95 % CI: 1.059–1.804, P = 0.017; CC + CT vs. TT: OR = 1.491, 95 % CI: 1.159–1.919,P = 0.002; CC vs. CT + TT: OR = 1.261, 95 % CI: 1.062–1.496, P = 0.008). Our subgroup analysis performed according to ethnicity revealed that FokI increased the risk of PD in Asian populations (C vs. T: OR = 1.261, 95 % CI: 1.080–1.472, P = 0.003; CC vs. TT: OR = 1.664, 95 % CI: 1.189–2.330, P = 0.003; CT vs.TT: OR = 1.387, 95 % CI: 1.000–1.925, P = 0.05; CC + CT vs. TT: OR = 1.497, 95 % CI: 1.098–2.042, P = 0.011; CC vs. CT + TT: OR = 1.285, 95 % CI: 1.036–1.593, P = 0.022). Overall, the gene polymorphism of FokI only increases the risk of PD among Asian populations. Given the limited sample size of this study, the findings should be carefully explained.