Common variants near MC4R are associated with fat mass, weight and risk of obesity.

Loos RJ, Lindgren CM, Li S, Wheeler E, Zhao JH, Prokopenko I, Inouye M, Freathy RM, Attwood AP, Beckmann JS, Berndt SI, Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial (Jacobs KB, Chanock SJ, Hayes Bergmann S, Bergmann S, Bennett AJ, Bingham SA, Bochud M, Brown M, Cauchi S, Connell JM, Cooper C, Smith GD, Day I, Dina C, De S, Dermitzakis ET, Doney AS, Elliott KS, Elliott P, Evans DM, Sadaf Farooqi I, Froguel P, Ghori J, Groves CJ, Gwilliam R, Hadley D, Hall AS, Hattersley AT, Hebebrand J, Heid IM, KORA (Lamina C, Gieger C, Illig T, Meitinger T, Wichmann HE), Herrera B, Hinney A, Hunt SE, Jarvelin MR, Johnson T, Jolley JD, Karpe F, Keniry A, Khaw KT, Luben RN, Mangino M, Marchini J, McArdle WL, McGinnis R, Meyre D, Munroe PB, Morris AD, Ness AR, Neville MJ, Nica AC, Ong KK, O'Rahilly S, Owen KR, Palmer CN, Papadakis K, Potter S, Pouta A, Qi L, Nurses' Health Study (Kraft P, Hankinson SE, Hunter DJ, Hu FB), Randall JC, Rayner NW, Ring SM, Sandhu MS, Scherag A, Sims MA, Song K, Soranzo N, Speliotes EK, Diabetes Genetics Initiative (Lyon HN, Voight BF, Ridderstrale M, Groop L), Syddall HE, Teichmann SA, Timpson NJ, Tobias JH, Uda M, SardiNIA Study (Scheet P, Sanna S, Abecasis GR, Albai G, Nagaraja R, Schlessinger D), Vogel CI, Wallace C, Waterworth DM, Weedon MN, Willer CJ, FUSION (Jackson AU, Tuomilehto J, Collins FS, Boehnke M, Mohlke KL), Wraight, Yuan X, Zeggini E, Hirschhorn JN, Strachan DP, Ouwehand WH, Caulfield MJ, Samani NJ, Frayling TM, Vollenweider P, Waeber G, Mooser V, Deloukas P, McCarthy MI, Wareham NJ and Barroso I

Nat Genet (2008) 40:768-75

To identify common variants influencing body mass index (BMI), we analyzed genome-wide association data from 16,876 individuals of European descent. After previously reported variants in FTO, the strongest association signal (rs17782313, P = 2.9 x 10(-6)) mapped 188 kb downstream of MC4R (melanocortin-4 receptor), mutations of which are the leading cause of monogenic severe childhood-onset obesity. We confirmed the BMI association in 60,352 adults (per-allele effect = 0.05 Z-score units; P = 2.8 x 10(-15)) and 5,988 children aged 7-11 (0.13 Z-score units; P = 1.5 x 10(-8)). In case-control analyses (n = 10,583), the odds for severe childhood obesity reached 1.30 (P = 8.0 x 10(-11)). Furthermore, we observed overtransmission of the risk allele to obese offspring in 660 families (P (pedigree disequilibrium test average; PDT-avg) = 2.4 x 10(-4)). The SNP location and patterns of phenotypic associations are consistent with effects mediated through altered MC4R function. Our findings establish that common variants near MC4R influence fat mass, weight and obesity risk at the population level and reinforce the need for large-scale data integration to identify variants influencing continuous biomedical traits.