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

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 < 0.001; genotypic frequency p = 0.004). These difference was still significant (allelic frequency p < 0.011; genotypic frequency 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.