Introduction : Single nucleotide polymorphism in the 3’ untranslated region of the vesicle-associated membrane protein gene (VAMP-8) has been associated with increased risk of early-onset myocardial infarction (MI). In this study the risk of early onset MI conferred by VAMP-8 gene polymorphism was investigated in a group of 171 male subjects.
Material and methods : Male patients with a history of MI who underwent coronary angiography were enrolled and divided into early (incident < 55 years of age) and late (incident  55 years of age) MI onset groups. Apart from the RFLP-PCR based analysis of the VAMP-8 variant, history of hypertension, lipid abnormalities, smoking and body mass index were recorded. In statistical analyses odds ratios and relative risk were used as a measure of genotype-MI association while logistic regression was implemented for evaluation of MI risk factor strength.
Results : VAMP-8 A allele frequency proved to be significantly higher in the early-onset MI group and conferred higher relative risk of early MI in the investigated cohort, when calculated for the individual A allele (p = 0.029). In logistic regression analyses no association between risk genotypes and traditional risk factors was observed.
Conclusions : In this study VAMP-8 A variant was identified as a risk allele for early MI in male subjects.