Urate Genetic Assessment in Asian and Pacific Islander Subgroups of Pregnant Women: Implications for Personalized Medicine and Means to Reduce Health Disparities

Abstract

Gout is one of the most common rheumatic conditions and appears to have a higher prevalence in certain populations. Risk factors for gout and its precursor, hyperuricemia, are also significant risk factors for preeclampsia, major pregnancy-related morbidity. A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted on 1059 pregnant women from different populations whom 100% reported their ethnicities from the Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander populations. Numerous uric acid (UA) genes and clinical conditions were addressed, and all study details were reviewed and exempted by the University of Hawaii human Studies Program (Protocol Number: 2018-00225). In this project, we hypothesized that UA allele frequencies are associated with certain populations and the development of preeclampsia. This study aimed to assess UA risk allele frequencies across a diverse cohort of pregnant individuals and determine if UA risk alleles are associated with risk factors for preeclampsia. The primary outcome was to assess the frequencies of the eight UA risk alleles provided by the biospecimens repository across the Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander populations compared to European (EUR) ancestry. All UA risk alleles and genotypes for EUR were estimated from the Ensembl genome browser. The second outcome is to assess the association between UA risk alleles and other factors involving age/BMI in developing cardiometabolic disorders (CMDs) in Filipino and Samoan pregnant women. Our study found that Asian pregnant women had a higher prevalence of UA risk alleles compared to the EUR population. The Asian population is at high risk of cardiometabolic disorder prevalence, and we found UA risk alleles may be associated with developing CMDs across the Asian population.