Variations in ORAI1 Gene Associated with Kawasaki Disease: e0145486

• Published in: PloS one 2016-01, Vol.11 (1)
• Main Authors: Onouchi, Yoshihiro, Fukazawa, Ryuji, Yamamura, Kenichiro, Suzuki, Hiroyuki, Kakimoto, Nobuyuki, Suenaga, Tomohiro, Takeuchi, Takashi, Hamada, Hiromichi, Honda, Takafumi, Yasukawa, Kumi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0145486

Kawasaki disease (KD; MIM#61175) is a systemic vasculitis syndrome with unknown etiology which predominantly affects infants and children. Recent findings of susceptibility genes for KD suggest possible involvement of the Ca2+/NFAT pathway in the pathogenesis of KD. ORAI1 is a Ca2+ release activated Ca2+ (CRAC) channel mediating store-operated Ca2+ entry (SOCE) on the plasma membrane. The gene for ORAI1 is located in chromosome 12q24 where a positive linkage signal was observed in our previous affected sib-pair study of KD. A common non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism located within exon 2 of ORAI1 (rs3741596) was significantly associated with KD (P = 0.028 in the discovery sample set (729 KD cases and 1,315 controls), P = 0.0056 in the replication sample set (1,813 KD cases vs. 1,097 controls) and P = 0.00041 in a meta-analysis by the Mantel-Haenszel method). Interestingly, frequency of the risk allele of rs3741596 is more than 20 times higher in Japanese compared to Europeans. We also found a rare 6 base-pair in-frame insertion variant associated with KD (rs141919534; 2,544 KD cases vs. 2,414 controls, P = 0.012). These data indicate that ORAI1 gene variations are associated with KD and may suggest the potential importance of the Ca2+/NFAT pathway in the pathogenesis of this disorder.