• Zafer Orkun Toktaş, Murat Şakir Ekşi, Baran Yılmaz, Mustafa Kemal Demir, Serdar Özgen, Türker Kılıç, and Deniz Konya.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Bahçeşehir University Medical Faculty, Çırağan Caddesi Osmanpaşa Mektebi Sokak No: 4-6, 34353, Beşiktaş, Istanbul, Turkey. drzafertoktas@gmail.com.
• Eur Spine J. 2015 Nov 1; 24 (11): 2432-41.

PurposeSeveral genomic loci have been previously found to be associated with intervertebral disc degeneration, so far. Data are mostly derived from northern European countries whereas data derived from Southern European Ancestor are limited. This study aimed to evaluate the association between radiological disease severity of lumbar disc degeneration and certain genetic loci in a sample of participants from Southern Europe.MethodsSeventy-five patients with mild to severe lumbar disc degeneration and 25 healthy controls were enrolled into the study. In each subject, each lumbar intervertebral disc was separately examined to obtain a total radiological score for disease severity. In addition, single-nucleotide polymorphisms of predefined genetic samples were analyzed in all participants: COL1A1 Sp1, COL9a2 Trp2, COL9a3 Trp3, and VDR TaqI.ResultsDegeneration scores were significantly worse in cases with COL1A1 Sp1, COL9a3 Trp3, and VDR TaqI mutations; however, COL9a2 Trp2 mutation was not associated with a difference in the severity of disc degeneration. In addition, subjects with mutation in more than one gene sample (n = 20) had significantly worse degeneration scores than the remaining study participants (n = 80) (17.70 ± 2.72 vs. 21.81 ± 1.81, p < 0.001).ConclusionSingle-nucleotide polymorphisms occurring in COL1A1, COL9a3 and VDR genes seem to be associated with the development of lumbar disc degeneration in this cohort, possibly with even more pronounced association when multiple mutations are present in the same individual. By further prospective twin studies in associated genes and analyses of their relationship with environmental factors in an internationally sampled large cohort will make a more clear-minded conclusion about their association with disc degeneration, which would yield better appreciation and clinical planning of some predisposed people for these pathologies.

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