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A genome-wide scan for quantitative trait loci linked to obesity phenotypes among West Africans

International Journal of Obesity volume 29, pages 255–259 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

To identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) for three obesity phenotypes: body mass index (BMI), fat mass (FM) and percent body fat (PBF) in West Africans with type 2 diabetes (T2DM).

DESIGN:

An affected sibling pair (ASP) design, in which both siblings had T2DM. Obesity was analyzed as a quantitative trait using a variance components approach.

SUBJECTS:

Sib-pairs affected with T2DM from the Africa America Diabetes Mellitus (AADM) study, comprising 321 sibling pairs and 36 half-sibling pairs.

MEASUREMENTS:

Weight was measured on an electronic scale to the nearest 0.1 kg, and height was measured with a stadiometer to the nearest 0.1 cm. Body composition was estimated using bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA). Genotyping was carried out at the Center for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR) with a panel of 390 trinucleotide and tetranucleotide repeats.

RESULTS:

The obesity-related phenotype showing the strongest linkage evidence was PBF on chromosome 2 (LOD 3.30 at 72.6 cM, marker D2S739). Suggestive linkage to FM was found on chromosomes 2 (LOD 2.56 at 80.4 cM) and 5 (LOD 2.25 at 98 cM, marker D5S1725). The highest LOD score for BMI was 1.68 (chromosome 4, 113.8 cM). The areas of linkage for the three phenotypes showed some clustering as all three phenotypes were linked to the same regions of 2p13 and 5q14, and our study replicated linkage evidence for several regions previously reported in other studies.

CONCLUSION:

We obtained evidence for several QTLs on chromosome 2, 4 and 5 to three obesity phenotypes. This study provides data on the genetics of obesity in populations that are currently under represented in the global effort directed at understanding the pathophysiology of excess adiposity in free living individuals.

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Acknowledgements

This work was support for the AADM study is provided by NIH Grant No. 3T37TW00041-03S2 from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparity (NCMHD). This project is also supported in part by the RCMI Program-National Center for Research Resources, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and by the NIDDK grant DK-54001. Genotyping was carried out by the Center for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR) and detailed information on laboratory methods and markers can be found at http://www.cidr.jhmi.edu. The marker map used was from the Marshfield Center for Medical Genetics (http://research.marshfieldclinic.org/genetics/). Some of the results of this paper were obtained using the program SAGE, which is supported by a US Public Health Service Resource Grant (RR03655) from the National Center for Research Resources.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Human Genome Center, College of Medicine, Howard University, Washington, DC, USA

    G Chen, A A Adeyemo, J Zhou, G M Dunston, Y Chen & C Rotimi

  2. University of Ibadan, College of Medicine, Ibadan, Nigeria

    A A Adeyemo & F Abbiyesuku

  3. University of Lagos, College of Medicine, Endocrine and Metabolic Unit, Lagos, Nigeria

    T Johnson

  4. Department of Medicine, University of Ghana Medical School, Accra, Ghana

    A Amoah & S Owusu

  5. Department of Medicine, University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

    J Acheampong, K Agyenim-Boateng & B A Eghan Jr

  6. Department of Medicine, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, Nigeria

    J Oli & G Okafor

  7. National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    F Collins

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  1. G Chen
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Correspondence to C Rotimi.

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Chen, G., Adeyemo, A., Johnson, T. et al. A genome-wide scan for quantitative trait loci linked to obesity phenotypes among West Africans. Int J Obes 29, 255–259 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0802873

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