Contribution of variants in and near the IRF6 gene to the risk of nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate in a Malay population

Several studies have shown evidence for the contribution of interferon regulatory factor 6 (IRF6) variants to the risk of nonsyndromic oral clefts in Asians; however, this has not included the Malay population. The current study attempts to address this research gap using allele and haplotype transmission disequilibrium analyses. The results showed a strong transmission distortion for multiple haplotypes to patients with nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate. Haplotypes carrying the 243 bp allele of D1S2136 and common alleles at the rs861019 and rs2235371 were over-transmitted to patients. By contrast, haplotypes consisting of the 251 bp allele of D1S2136 and the rare allele at rs2235371 were more under-transmitted. Furthermore, several variants and haplotypes showed excess maternal transmission, but none of them attained statistical significance in maternal relative risk analyses. In contrast, a significant child genotype effect was observed for several haplotypes, indicating fetal genotype could be the major genetic contribution rather than maternal genotype. The present study therefore further supports a role for IRF6 variants in clefting in this Southeast Asian population. Overall, Asian genetic backgrounds are most likely more susceptible to the haploinsufficiency of IRF6 variants. These variants may contribute to the condition either themselves, or they may be in linkage disequilibrium with other casual variants.