Interactions between genetic variants and near-work activities in incident myopia in schoolchildren: a 4-year prospective longitudinal study

ABSTRACT

Clinical relevance

Knowledge of interactions between genetic variants and near-work activities at the onset of myopia can facilitate health education regarding myopia.

Background

To investigate the interactions between genetic variants (PDE10A, AREG and GABRR1) and near-work activities in the onset of myopia in southeastern Chinese school children.

Methods

A total of 458 non-myopic, grade 1 children aged 6–7 years were included in a 4-year follow-up examination; 409 children were assessed further. Manifest (non-cycloplegic) refraction and axial length (AL) were measured every year, and questionnaires were administered annually to assess information regarding the demographic characteristics of children, near-work activities, outdoor exposure and parental myopia. Oral mucosa was collected in the last year of follow-up, and Sanger sequencing was used to genotype single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in DNA.

Results

The cumulative change in the spherical equivalent refraction (SER) over 4 years was −1.20 ± 1.00 D, and the proportion of children with incident myopia was 42.9%. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that an increased amount of time spent doing homework (>2 h/d) was an independent risk factor for incident myopia. The PDE10A rs12206610CT genotype and spending > 5 h/d on near-work activities showed an interaction for incident myopia (OR = 4.29, 95% CI: 1.27-14.53; P_interaction = 0.02); moreover, the rs12206610CT genotype carriers who used electronic devices for > 1 h/d displayed an increased risk of incident myopia (OR = 3.43, 95% CI: 1.07-11.01; P_interaction = 0.043).

Conclusions

The rs2206610CT genotype carriers with near-work activities of >5 h/d were more likely to show incident myopia, especially those who used electronic devices >1 h/d. However, interactions between the rs12206610 SNP and near-work activities require further verification in animal models and larger sample cohorts.

KEYWORDS:

• Genetic variants
• incidence
• myopia
• Near work school children

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Lizhong Wang, Jingwei Zheng, Hewei Zheng and Yu Ding for contributions to the statistical analysis and offering suggestions. The authors also thank the students, their parents and schools for their co-operation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

The datasets generated and analysed in this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This research was chiefly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81873683). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.