Effect of vitamin D receptor gene polymorphisms on the risk of chronic and aggressive periodontitis: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the Chinese population

Abstract

Objective: To explore whether vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene polymorphisms are associated to the risk of chronic and aggressive periodontitis in the Chinese population.

Design: The electronic databases PubMed, SCOPUS, Web of Science, China Biology Medicine Database, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database were searched without language restrictions to find available publications about the association between BsmI, TaqI, FokI, and ApaI polymorphisms of VDR gene and the risk of periodontitis listed up to December 2021. The Newcastle-Ottawa scale (NOS) was used to assess the quality of eligible publications and those with a score of ≥ 6 were considered to be of high quality. The strength of associations was evaluated using the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Results: 16 eligible studies including 6106 participants were finally selected for pooled analyses. The NOS score of eligible papers ranged from 6 to 8, showing that all analyzed studies were of high quality. VDR BsmI polymorphism under the allele (OR = 1.46, 95% CI: 1.1-1.9, P = 0.008) and dominant (OR = 1.5, 95% CI: 1.06-2.12, P = 0.022) models was significantly associated with the risk of severe periodontitis in South China. VDR FokI polymorphism under the allele (OR = 2.01, 95% CI: 1.3-2.9, P < 0.001), dominant (OR = 2.2, 95% CI: 1.14-4.23, P = 0.018), and recessive (OR = 2.9, 95% CI: 1.5-5.5, P = 0.001) models showed a significant association with the risk of aggressive periodontitis in whole Chinese population. There was a protective effect of the ApaI polymorphism against the development of severe periodontitis in the North Chinese people; indeed, a significant negative association was found between ApaI polymorphism under the dominant model and the risk of severe periodontitis in North China (OR = 0.41, 95% CI: 019-087, P = 0.021). However, VDR TaqI polymorphism showed no significant association.

Conclusions: The present meta-analysis detected a significant association between BsmI, FokI, and ApaI polymorphisms in the VDR gene and the risk of severe periodontitis in China.

Keywords: ApaI; BsmI; FokI; Periodontitis; Polymorphism; TaqI; Vitamin D receptor.