A Genome-Wide Scan for Obesity in African-Americans
- Xiaofeng Zhu1,
- Richard S. Cooper1,
- Amy Luke1,
- Guanjie Chen1,
- Xiaodong Wu1,
- Donghui Kan1,
- Aravinda Chakravarti2 and
- Alan Weder3
- 1Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical School, Maywood, Illinois
- 2McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
- 3Division of Hypertension, Department of Medicine, University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Abstract
A genome-wide scan using 387 short tandem repeat markers was conducted for obesity among 618 black individuals from 202 families residing in a suburb of Chicago. Evidence for linkage was evaluated with BMI and percent body fat (PBF) using a variance component analysis approach. Suggestive evidence for linkage was found for BMI on chromosome 5 (logarithm of odds [LOD] score = 1.9) and PBF on chromosome 6 (LOD score = 2.7). One additional region on chromosome 3 was linked to these phenotypes at a lower level of significance (LOD score = 1.8 and 0.95 for BMI and PBF, respectively); the linked marker on this chromosome lies in the same region implicated as harboring obesity genes in a previous study of a white population. The replication of linkage evidence using different ethnic groups reinforces the potential significance of this latter candidate region.
Footnotes
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Address correspondence and reprint requests to Xiaofeng Zhu, Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Loyola University Medical School, Maywood, IL 60153. E-mail: xzhu1{at}luc.edu.
Received for publication 26 December 2000 and accepted in revised form 26 October 2001.
IBD, identity-by-descent; LOD, logarithm of odds; MLS, maximum LOD score; PBF, percent body fat; QTL, quantitative trait locus.
