Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011:2011:329038.
doi: 10.1155/2011/329038. Epub 2010 Dec 26.

Gene by sex interaction for measures of obesity in the framingham heart study

Ashlee M Benjamin  1 , Sunil Suchindran, Kaela Pearce, Jennifer Rowell, Lillian F Lien, John R Guyton, Jeanette J McCarthy
Affiliations

Gene by sex interaction for measures of obesity in the framingham heart study

Ashlee M Benjamin et al. J Obes. 2011.

Abstract

Obesity is an increasingly prevalent and severe health concern with a substantial heritable component and marked sex differences. We sought to determine if the effect of genetic variants also differed by sex by performing a genome-wide association study modeling the effect of genotype-by-sex interaction on obesity phenotypes. Genotype data from individuals in the Framingham Heart Study Offspring cohort were analyzed across five exams. Although no variants showed genome-wide significant gene-by-sex interaction in any individual exam, four polymorphisms displayed a consistent BMI association (P-values .00186 to .00010) across all five exams. These variants were clustered downstream of LYPLAL1, which encodes a lipase/esterase expressed in adipose tissue, a locus previously identified as having sex-specific effects on central obesity. Primary effects in males were in the opposite direction from females and were replicated in Framingham Generation 3. Our data support a sex-influenced association between genetic variation at the LYPLAL1 locus and obesity-related traits.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
QQ plots for gene by sex interaction (a) and main effect (b) GWAS for body mass index (BMI) in Generation 2, exams 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Linkage disequilibrium (shown as r2) in the region encompassing LYPLAL1, the consensus SNPs associated with body mass index (BMI) in our gene by sex interaction GWAS, and the sex-specific SNPs associated with waist to hip ratio (WHR) in recent GWAS meta-analyses.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mean body mass index (BMI) by genotype and sex across exams for the top associated SNP in LYPLAL1 (rs7552206) with Standard Error Bars and SNP P values.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Significance level of main effect (ME) and/or gene by sex interaction (GxS) associations with body mass index (BMI) and/or waist to hip ratio (WHR) for various loci of interest.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Wang Y, Beydoun MA. The obesity epidemic in the United States—gender, age, socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and geographic characteristics: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis. Epidemiologic Reviews. 2007;29(1):6–28. - PubMed
    1. Zhang QI, Wang Y. Trends in the association between obesity and socioeconomic status in U.S. adults: 1971 to 2000. Obesity Research. 2004;12(10):1622–1632. - PubMed
    1. Okosun IS, Choi ST, Boltri JM, et al. Trends of abdominal adiposity in white, black, and Mexican-American adults, 1988 to 2000. Obesity Research. 2003;11(8):1010–1017. - PubMed
    1. Okosun IS, Chandra KMD, Boev A, et al. Abdominal adiposity in U.S. adults: prevalence and trends, 1960-2000. Preventive Medicine. 2004;39(1):197–206. - PubMed
    1. Speliotes EK, Willer CJ, Berndt SI, et al. Association analyses of 249,796 individuals reveal 18 new loci associated with body mass index. Nature Genetics. 2010;42(11):937–948. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources