Several loci associated with coronary artery disease (CAD) have been identified by GWAS [26]–[29]. The strongest association involves SNPs in the 9p21 region. Recently it was reported that deletion in mice of the region orthologous to the 9p21 CAD interval in human affects the expression of the nearby cdkn2a and cdkn2b genes as well as the properties of proliferation of vascular cells [30]. The Cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor coding genes, CDNK2A and CDNK2B, are also located close to the CAD locus in humans. CDKN2A expression in monocytes was not detected in our study, we therefore focused our analysis on CDKN2B. All SNPs available in GHS in the region encompassing the CAD locus were tested for association with the expression of CDKN2B. Figure 4 shows that CDKN2B expression was strongly associated with several SNPs located in a region upstream of the gene sequence (P<10−60). However, these SNPs were not associated with CAD (this result was obtained in a yet unpublished GWAS comparing GHS individuals to a cohort of CAD patients), whereas proxies of the CAD-associated SNPs were unrelated with CDKN2B expression (see
