There is no association between certain single-nucleotide variants localized in genes and the risk of ACL injury in female elite athletes, suggests a study published recently in The American Journal of Sports Medicine.
In the study, researchers followed 851 female Norwegian and Finnish elite athletes from team sports, recording ACL injuries acquired before inclusion in the cohort and any new complete ACL injuries through 2015. Researchers genotyped six selected single-nucleotide variants.
They then compared the genotype and minor allele frequencies of all the single-nucleotide variants in athletes with no ACL injuries (n=732) to athletes with ACL injury before or after inclusion in the study (n=119). The results suggest no significant associations in either the unadjusted analyses or when adjusting for cohort and sport, explains a media release from Healio.
Researchers also found no associations in unadjusted analyses when athletes with no history of ACL injury (n=790) were compared with athletes with ACL injury after inclusion in the study (n=58). However. they found a significant association between the genotype frequencies of rs13946 in the COL5A1 gene when adjusting for country and sport.
In a separate analysis of the single-nucleotide variants rs1800012 and rs970547 between the national cohorts, results showed no association with ACL injury risk. Researchers noted a risk ratio for suffering a new ACL injury during follow-up of 2.5 when comparing athletes with an ACL injury before inclusion (n=61) and athletes with no history of ACL injury (n=790), the release continues.
“Although a genetic predisposition may exist, the importance of this—and thus the clinical significance—is unclear,” the authors write. “Theoretically, measures to prevent ACL injuries could be targeted to individuals with a specific genetic makeup, but currently there is no evidence supporting such an approach.”
[Source: Healio]
