Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Loss of Lpin1 activity causes lipodystrophy and insulin resistance in the fld mouse, and LPIN1 expression and common genetic variation were recently suggested to influence adiposity and insulin sensitivity in humans. We aimed to conduct a comprehensive association study to clarify the influence of LPIN1 common variation on adiposity and insulin sensitivity in UK populations, and to examine the role of LPIN1 mutations in insulin resistance syndromes.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHOD: Twenty-two SNPs tagging LPIN1 common variation were genotyped in MRC Ely (N = 1709) and Hertfordshire (N = 2901) population-based cohorts. LPIN1 exons, exon/intron boundaries and 3′UTR were sequenced in 158 patients with idiopathic severe insulin resistance (including 23 lipodystrophic patients), and 48 controls.

RESULTS: We found no association between LPIN1 SNPs and fasting insulin, but report a nominal association between rs13412852 and BMI (P = 0.042) in a meta-analysis of 8504 samples from in-house and publicly available studies. Three rare nonsynonymous variants (A353T, R552K and G582R) were detected in severely insulin resistant patients. However, these did not co-segregate with disease in affected families and Lipin1 protein expression and phosphorylation in patients with variants was indistinguishable from controls.

CONCLUSIONS: Our data do not support a major effect of LPIN1 common variation on metabolic traits and suggest that mutations in LPIN1 are not a common cause of lipodystrophy in humans. The nominal associations with BMI and other metabolic traits in UK cohorts require replication in larger cohorts.