GPx-3 Gene Promoter Variation and the Risk of Arterial Ischemic Stroke

To the Editor:The recently published association of a particular promoter variant of the GPx-3 (plasma glutathione peroxidase) gene with increased risk for arterial ischemic stroke in this journal1 was the result of a long-duration research project. A set of linked polymorphisms in the promotor of the GPx-3 gene was described previously, and it was shown that carriers of a particular haplotype (H2) had a 2-fold increase in risk of ischemic stroke compared with noncarriers.2 The authors had, furthermore, analyzed the regulation of GPx-3 expression in a cultured cell system, identified a novel transcription start site and demonstrated that hypoxia was a strong transcriptional regulator of GPx-3 expression.3 The interest of the research …