Objective: To investigate the relationship between the plasminogen activator inhibitor-1(PAI-1) gene polymorphism and cerebrovascular disease and detect whether it plays an important role in the pathogenesis of cerebrovascular disease.
Methods: Peripheral blood leukocytes samples were collected from 60 normal controls, 65 patients with acute cerebral infarction (CI) and 31 hypertensives complicated with cerebral hemorrhage. The 4G/5G allele polymorphism in the PAI-1 gene promotor region of the leukocytes was genotyped by polymerase chain reaction. The plasma PAI-1 activity was assayed by ELISA.
Results: The plasma PAI-1 activity level in the CI group was significantly higher than those in the other two groups. PAI-1 level in 4G allele homozygous genotype was significantly higher than the PAI-1 levels in 4G/5G heterozygous and 5G homozygous. Although PAI-1 level was higher in 4G/5G heterozygous genotype than in 5G homozygous, the difference was not statistically significant. There were significant differences between acute cerebral infarction PAI-1 gene polymorphism and controls (P<0.05), and the frequencies of 4G/4G genotype in patients with acute cerebral infarction (43.08%) were higher than those in normal controls (20.00%, P<0.05). There were no significant differences between hypertensives complicated with hemorrhage (25.81%) and controls (P>0.05), and the PAI-1 levels of the 4G/4G genotype in the female patients with CI were higher than those in the male patients with CI of the same genotype.
Conclusion: The results suggest that PAI-1 gene polymorphism may be a susceptible factor to acute cerebral infarction in Chinese, and 4G allele homozygous genotype may be the major risk factor for acute cerebral infarction, and it may be especially an independent risk factor of cerebral infarction in female patients.