Work

Association of BMAL1 and CLOCK Gene Polymorphisms with Preeclampsia Risk with Subtype Analysis

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Preeclampsia (PE), a major cause of maternal and perinatal morbidity, is a hypertensive pregnancy disorder with poorly defined pathogenesis. While dysregulation of core circadian genes including brain and muscle ARNT-like 1 (BMAL1; also termed ARNTL) and circadian locomotor output cycles kaput (CLOCK) has been implicated in PE, the contribution of their genetic polymorphisms to PE remains unclear. In this case–control study, polymorphisms in BMAL1 and CLOCK were genotyped using MassARRAY in 202 PE patients (97 early-onset [eoPE], 105 late-onset [loPE]) and 400 controls. Following genotyping and linkage disequilibrium-pruning (r2 > 0.8) to retain representative tag SNPs, the final set for association analysis comprised three non-redundant BMAL1 SNPs (rs4757144, rs11022780, rs969485) and one CLOCK SNP (rs1048004). After confounder adjustment, no significant associations were detected for CLOCK variants, whereas the BMAL1 rs11022780 variant demonstrated a significant protective effect against PE (TT vs. CC: OR = 0.26 [95% CI 0.09–0.78]; recessive model: OR = 0.25 [95% CI 0.09–0.74]), particularly in the eoPE subgroup. Expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analysis confirmed that this SNP correlated with BMAL1 mRNA expression in whole blood, and protein–protein interaction analysis highlighted BMAL1′s central role in circadian networks, implying a genetically influenced regulatory mechanism of PE through BMAL1 expression.

Source: International Journal of Molecular Sciences

DOI: 10.3390/ijms262110797