A trabecular plate-like phenotype is overrepresented in Chinese-American versus Caucasian women

Walker MD, Shi S, Russo JJ, Liu XS, Zhou B, Zhang C, Liu G, McMahon DJ et al.

Osteoporosis international : a journal established as result of cooperation between the European Foundation for Osteoporosis and the National Osteoporosis Foundation of the USA, 2014

Abstract

UNLABELLED: This study used extreme phenotype selection to define two trabecular bone phenotypes in a cohort of Chinese-American and Caucasian women. A trabecular plate-predominant phenotype is more common in Chinese-Americans while the rod-predominant phenotype is more typical of Caucasians. The robustness of these phenotypic associations with respect to lifestyle factors suggests that this trait may have a genetic basis and that these phenotypes can be utilized in future genetic studies.

INTRODUCTION: Compared to Caucasians, Chinese-Americans have more plate-like trabecular bone when measured by individual trabecula segmentation (ITS). These findings suggest a phenotypic difference between the races, which may be amenable to genetic analysis. We sought to identify a single ITS plate trait to pursue in genetic studies by conducting an extreme phenotype selection strategy to numerically define two distinct phenotypes-plate-like and rod-like-and determine whether the selected phenotypic associations were independent of lifestyle factors in order to conduct future genetic studies.

METHODS: A previously described cohort of 146 Chinese-American and Caucasian women with high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography imaging and ITS analyses were studied with logistic regression and receiver operator characteristic analyses.

RESULTS: The tibial plate-to-rod (TPR) ratio was the best ITS discriminator of race. Using extreme phenotypic selection, two TPR ratio phenotypes…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a cross-sectional, done in people. Its evidence level is 4 of 5 (Low · observational). Observational designs can show an association but not prove cause.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

• DOI
• PubMed
• Publisher page

Related studies

• Benign periarticular, bone and joint lipomatous lesions Singapore medical journal, 2017
• A review of the physiological and histological effects of laser osteotomy Journal of medical engineering & technology, 2017
• Quality of bone healing: perspectives and assessment techniques Wound repair and regeneration : official publication of the Wound Healing Society [and] the European Tissue Repair Society, 2014
• Effects of bioactive lipids and lipoproteins on bone Trends in endocrinology and metabolism: TEM, 2014
• Bone structure and function Instructional course lectures, 1987
• Quantifying bone structure, micro-architecture, and pathophysiology with MRI. Clinical radiology, 2018

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free