A study was conducted to validate the most significant single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) from a genome-wide association study of Japanese adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) patients in an independent southern Chinese population. In total, 300 AIS patients fulfilled the clinical criteria and 788 controls with MRI scans of the spine were included in the replication study. We employed case-control analysis to study the association of SNP rs11190870 near LBX1 (ladybird homeobox 1) with AIS in a southern Chinese population. The results suggest that SNP rs11190870 is significantly associated with AIS (P=9.1 × 10(-10); odds ratio=1.85; 95% confidence interval=1.52-2.25). The results of this study confirm that SNP rs11190870 is associated with AIS.