Genetic association of SNPs in the FTO gene and predisposition to obesity in Malaysian Malays

Y.D Apalasamy,A Bulgiba,Z Mohamed,S Rampal,M.F Ming

doi:10.1590/s0100-879x2012007500134

Abstract

The common variants in the fat mass- and obesity-associated (FTO) gene have been previously found to be associated with obesity in various adult populations. The objective of the present study was to investigate whether the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and linkage disequilibrium (LD) blocks in various regions of the FTO gene are associated with predisposition to obesity in Malaysian Malays. Thirty-one FTO SNPs were genotyped in 587 (158 obese and 429 non-obese) Malaysian Malay subjects. Obesity traits and lipid profiles were measured and single-marker association testing, LD testing, and haplotype association analysis were performed. LD analysis of the FTO SNPs revealed the presence of 57 regions with complete LD (D' = 1.0). In addition, we detected the association of rs17817288 with low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. The FTO gene may therefore be involved in lipid metabolism in Malaysian Malays. Two haplotype blocks were present in this region of the FTO gene, but no particular haplotype was found to be significantly associated with an increased risk of obesity in Malaysian Malays.

Highlights

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines overweight as a body mass index (BMI) of >25 kg/m2 and obesity as a BMI of >30 kg/m2
There were no significant differences in allelic or genotype frequencies of the 30 fat mass- and obesity-associated (FTO) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) between the obese and non-obese groups in the Malaysian Malay population
A recent study [22] showed that, as a transcriptional coactivator, FTO might play an important role in the transcriptional regulation of adipogenesis and suggested that FTO might be involved in the regulation of fat development and maintenance

Summary

Introduction

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines overweight as a body mass index (BMI) of >25 kg/m2 and obesity as a BMI of >30 kg/m2. Frayling et al [1] first discovered in a GWAS that the rs9939609 variant of FTO, with clusters of SNPs in the first intron, was strongly associated with BMI in the UK population. Following this finding, an association between FTO SNPs and obesity traits was detected in people of European ancestry [2], Sardinians [6], and African Americans [7], as well as in a Belgian cohort [8], East Asian population [9], Japanese population [10,11], a Sorbian population in Germany [12], a Chinese population in Beijing [13], in an Indian population [14], and many other populations. Compared with other FTO variants, rs9939609 showed the strongest effect on BMI in these studies

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Results

Conclusion