COMPARISON OF DNA VARIANTS IN THREE GENES OF LIPID METABOLISM IN ENDURANCE ATHLETES AND CONTROLS

40 In a case-control study, we examined the contribution of three genes related to lipid metabolism that may play a role in discriminating elite endurance athletes (EEA) from sedentary controls (SC). The EEA group included 154 males recruited on the basis that they had a VO2max > 74 ml/kg·min-1. The SC group comprised 159 unrelated sedentary males who had VO2max values below 50 ml/kg·min-1. PCR technique was used to amplify two microsatellites in the gene for the lipoprotein lipase (LPL) and the apolipoprotein AI (APOA1), respectively. A RFLP in the carnitine palmitoyl transferase II (CPT2) was typed by digestion with BstXI after PCR amplification. The results for the genotype distributions between EEA and SC are presented in the table.TableNo difference was found between EEA and SC in the distribution of genotypes or allelic frequencies. In summary, we found no evidence that the markers of these three candidate genes of endurance performance account for the difference in EEA and SC status.