Association study between LEPR, MC4R polymorphisms and overweight/obesity in Chinese Han adolescents

Abstract Objective Obesity is one of the major health problems strongly influenced by lifestyle, genetic and environmental factors. Previous studies have reported many single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are associated with obesity in different races. This study aimed to explore the genetic associations between LEPR, MC4R polymorphisms and overweight/obesity in Chinese Han adolescents. Methods 400 adolescents including 222 health controls and 178 overweight/obese adolescents were genotyped and their body compositions were also analyzed in this study. Results We found that allelic and genotypic frequencies of LEPR SNP rs8179183 were significantly different between controls and cases (allelic frequency p p  = 0.004). These difference was still significant (allelic frequency p p  = 0.024) after Bonferroni correction. Moreover, we found that rs8179183 was associated with serum triglyceride level after adjusting for age and body mass index (BMI) ( p  = 0.037). Conclusion In summary, our results found a significant association between LEPR SNP rs8179183 and overweight/obesity in Chinese Han adolescent. This study may provide a reference for future studies of obesity.