Journal
PLOS ONE
Volume 6, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016356
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- National Institute of Animal Science [PJ006711]
- Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea [20050301034467]
- Korean National Institute of Health in Korea
- Rural Development Administration (RDA), Republic of Korea [20050301034467] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Obesity represents a major global public health problem that increases the risk for cardiovascular or metabolic disease. The pigs represent an exceptional biomedical model related to energy metabolism and obesity in humans. To pinpoint causal genetic factors for a common form of obesity, we conducted local genomic de novo sequencing, 18.2 Mb, of a porcine QTL region affecting fatness traits, and carried out SNP association studies for backfat thickness and intramuscular fat content in pigs. In order to relate the association studies in pigs to human obesity, we performed a targeted genome wide association study for subcutaneous fat thickness in a cohort population of 8,842 Korean individuals. These combined association studies in human and pig revealed a significant SNP located in a gene family with sequence similarity 73, member A (FAM73A) associated with subscapular skin-fold thickness in humans (rs4121165, GC-corrected p-value = 0.0000175) and with backfat thickness in pigs (ASGA0029495, p-value = 0.000031). Our combined association studies also suggest that eight neuronal genes are responsible for subcutaneous fat thickness: NEGR1, SLC44A5, PDE4B, LPHN2, ELTD1, ST6GALNAC3, ST6GALNAC5, and TTLL7. These results provide strong support for a major involvement of the CNS in the genetic predisposition to a common form of obesity.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available