Association between obesity and gene polymorphisms (ADRB3, HTR2A, NOS1)

Abstract

Obesity is a risk factor for many diseases, including diabetes mellitus, the incidence of which has nearly tripled since 1975, and is known to be caused by dietary and other lifestyle-related diseases as well as genetic factors. In this study, to elucidate the effects of genetic factors on individual differences in obesity vulnerability, I focused on four SNPs, including functional polymorphisms of ADRB3 (rs4994), HTR2A (rs6311, rs6313), and NOS1 (rs2682826), and compared the differences in the frequencies of these polymorphisms between nine obese subjects (BMI ≥ 25) and 51 non-obese subjects (BMI < 25) living in a Japanese prefecture. There was no significant difference in the allelic frequency of each SNP between the obese and non-obese groups. In addition, analysis of the combinations of gene polymorphisms showed that they were not associated with the risk of diabetes. Therefore, ADRB3 (rs4994), HTR2A (rs6311, rs6313), and NOS1 (rs2682826) gene SNPs do not appear to be risk factors for obesity.