Common variants of FUT2 are associated with plasma vitamin B12 levels

Abstract

We identified a strong association (P = 5.36 x 10(-17)) between rs492602 in FUT2 and plasma vitamin B(12) levels in a genome-wide scan (n = 1,658) and an independent replication sample (n = 1,059) from the Nurses' Health Study. Women homozygous for the rs492602[G] allele had higher B(12) levels. This allele is in strong linkage disequilibrium with the FUT2 nonsecretor variant encoding W143X, suggesting a plausible mechanism for altered B(12) absorption and plasma levels.

Figure 1. LD Structure of Chromosome 19

This panel shows the trend P values for association testing with plasma vitamin B₁₂ from 25 observed () and 44 imputed () SNPs from the GWA study displaying SNPs on chromosome 19p13.3. All known genes are shown (National Center for Biotechnology Information build 36.1)