Genome-wide association study for early-onset and morbid adult obesity identifies three new risk loci in European populations

We analyzed genome-wide association data from 1,380 Europeans with early-onset and morbid adult obesity and 1,416 age-matched normal-weight controls. Thirty-eight markers showing strong association were further evaluated in 14,186 European subjects. In addition to FTO and MC4R, we detected significant association of obesity with three new risk loci in NPC1 (endosomal/lysosomal Niemann-Pick C1 gene, P = 2.9 x 10(-7)), near MAF (encoding the transcription factor c-MAF, P 3.8 x 10(-13)) and near PTER (phosphotriesterase-related gene, P = 2.1 x 10(-7)).