Please find enclosed the manuscript: Association between Estrogen Receptor Alpha (ESR1) genetic variants and risk of Stroke, by Sarah H., Isaac S., Marta L., Marc C. and Julien S. to be submitted as an new article to Clinical Chemistry.

In this manuscript, we report the results of a nested case-control study in a French population on the risk of suffering an ischemic stroke associated with genetic variants in the gene coding for the protein Estrogen Receptor Alpha.

We believe that our findings could be of interest to the readers of Clinical Chemistry because they replicate partially the results observed by Rexrode et al. in a white American population and published in Clinical Chemistry in October 2007. Indeed, we demonstrate an association of the rs1271673 SNP T variant and a very common haplotype encompassing the rs1271673 variant with an increased risk of ischemic stroke.

We hope that the editorial board and the reviewers will agree on the interest of this study.

Sincerely yours,

Sarah H..