• Grgo Gunjaca, Mladen Boban, Marina Pehlić, Tatijana Zemunik, Danijela Budimir, Ivana Kolcić, Gordan Lauc, Igor Rudan, and Ozren Polasek.
• University of Split School of Medicine, Split, Croatia.
• Croat. Med. J. 2010 Feb 1; 51 (1): 23-31.

AimTo investigate the value of genomic information in prediction of individual serum uric acid concentrations.MethodsThree population samples were investigated: from isolated Adriatic island communities of Vis (n=980) and Korcula (n=944), and from general population of the city of Split (n=507). Serum uric acid concentration was correlated with the genetic risk score based on 8 previously described genes: PDZK1, GCKR, SLC2A9, ABCG2, LRRC16A, SLC17A1, SLC16A9, and SLC22A12, represented by a total of 16 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP). The data were analyzed using classification and regression tree (CART) and general linear modeling.ResultsThe most important variables for uric acid prediction with CART were genetic risk score in men and age in women. The percent of variance for any single SNP in predicting serum uric acid concentration varied from 0.0%-2.0%. The use of genetic risk score explained 0.1%-2.5% of uric acid variance in men and 3.9%-4.9% in women. The highest percent of variance was obtained when age, sex, and genetic risk score were used as predictors, with a total of 30.9% of variance in pooled analysis.ConclusionDespite overall low percent of explained variance, uric acid seems to be among the most predictive human quantitative traits based on the currently available SNP information. The use of genetic risk scores is a valuable approach in genetic epidemiology and increases the predictability of human quantitative traits based on genomic information compared with single SNP approach.

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