Genetic variant in DIP2A gene is associated with developmental dyslexia in Chinese population

Increasing evidence suggests that there is a substantial heritable component including several risk loci and candidate genes for developmental dyslexia (DD). DIP2A has been identified to be partially deleted on chromosome region 21q22.3, which cosegregates with DD. And it fits into a theoretical molecular network of DD implicated in the development of DD. Compared with some DD candidate genes that have been extensively studied (e.g., DYX1C1, DCDC2, KIAA0319, and ROBO1), very little is known about the association between candidate gene DIP2A and DD susceptibility. And given the linguistic and genetic differences between Chinese and other Western populations, it is worthwhile validating the association of DIP2A in Chinese dyslexic children. Here, we investigated two genetic variants, selected by bioinformatics analysis, in DIP2A in a Chinese population with 409 dyslexic cases and 410 healthy controls. We observed a significantly increased DD risk associated with rs2255526 G allele (OR = 1.297, 95% CI = 1.036-1.623, Padjusted = 0.023) and GG genotypes (OR = 1.833, 95% CI = 1.043-3.223, Padjusted = 0.035), compared with their wild-type counterparts. In addition, it was marginally significantly associated with DD under the recessive model (OR = 1.677, 95% CI = 0.967-2.908, Padjusted = 0.066) and the dominant model (OR = 1.314, 95% CI = 0.992-1.741, Padjusted = 0.057). However, we found no evidence of an association of SNP rs16979358 with DD. In conclusion, this study showed that a genetic variant in the DIP2A gene was associated with increased DD risk in China.