Clinical symptoms in fibromyalgia are associated to catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene Val158Met polymorphism

Abstract

1. Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a common chronic widespread pain syndrome mainly affecting women. The aim of this study was to explore the frequency and clinical significance of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene Val158Met polymorphism in a large cohort of Turkish patients with FMS. 2. The study included 379 FMS patients and 290 controls. Genomic DNA was isolated and genotyped using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analyses. 3. The genotype frequencies of Val158Met polymorphism showed a small difference between FMS patients and healthy controls (p = 0.047), however, the Met/Met genotype was significantly higher in FMS patients than healthy controls (p = 0.016). No difference was observed for allele frequencies between two groups. Stratification analysis according to clinical features for this disease reveals that weight, FMS Impact Questionnaire score, algometry and Raynaud's syndrome, were detected to have statistically significant associations with Val158Met polymorphism (p = 0.037, p = 0.042, p = 0.039 and p = 0.033, respectively). Pain sensitivity, measured by algometry, was statistically higher in patients with Met/Met genotype than the patients with Val/Val and Val/Met genotypes (p = 0.017). 4. The results of this study suggested that COMT gene Val158Met polymorphism is positively associated with FMS and play a relevant role in the clinical symptoms of the disease.

Fibromyalgia: A Review of Related Polymorphisms and Clinical Relevance

“…The sympathetic nervous system plays an incompletely understood role in the pathogenesis of chronic and acute pain. The COMT gene is an important gene related to FM risk and increase of pain severity (Inanir et al 2014, Park et al 2016b, Estévez-López et al 2018. It is responsible for the production of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) enzymes in nerve cells and in other tissues, such as liver and blood.…”

Fatores genéticos associados à fibromialgia: uma revisão narrativa

“…No que diz respeito à associação direta do polimorfismo COMT Val158Met (rs4680) com a suscetibilidade à FM, os dados são conflitantes. Alguns estudos foram capazes de demonstrar essa associação em pacientes com FM de diferentes origens étnicas (Gürsoy et al, 2003;Josep García-Fructuoso et al, 2006;Vargas-Alarcón et al, 2007;Cohen et al, 2009;Matsuda et al, 2010;Barbosa et al, 2012;Inanir et al, 2014), entretanto, outros, incluindo um estudo realizado com uma grande coorte nos Estados Unidos (Lee et al, 2018) não foram capazes de demonstrá-la (Vargas-Alarcón et al, 2007;Tander et al, 2008;Nicholl et al, 2010;Hatami et al, 2020). Outros polimorfismos que também ocorrem no gene COMT, rs6269…”

Association of polymorphism of the enzyme catechol-o-methyltransferase with fibromialgic syndrome and its clinical repercussions

“…Its function is to transform dopamine into HVA, in the central pathways of the nervous system, through an O-methylation reaction using S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM) as a methyl group donor to the hydroxyl group of the substrate. HVA is naturally excreted in the urine (24,25).…”