“Genome-Wide Association Study Identifies 112 New Loci for Body Mass Index in the Japanese Population”, Masato Akiyama, Yukinori Okada, Masahiro Kanai, Atsushi Takahashi, Yukihide Momozawa, Masashi Ikeda, Nakao Iwata, Shiro Ikegawa, Makoto Hirata, Koichi Matsuda, Motoki Iwasaki, Taiki Yamaji, Norie Sawada, Tsuyoshi Hachiya, Kozo Tanno, Atsushi Shimizu, Atsushi Hozawa, Naoko Minegishi, Shoichiro Tsugane, Masayuki Yamamoto, Michiaki Kubo Yoichiro Kamatani2017-09-11 (gene editing, genetic correlation; backlinks; similar)⁠:

Obesity is a risk factor for a wide variety of health problems.

In a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of body mass index (BMI) in Japanese people (n = 173,430), we found:

85 loci statistically-significantly associated with obesity (p < 5.0 × 10⁻⁸), of which 51 were previously unknown. We conducted trans-ancestral meta-analyses by integrating these results with the results from a GWAS of Europeans and identified 61 additional new loci. In total, this study identifies 112 novel loci, doubling the number of previously known BMI-associated loci.

By annotating associated variants with cell-type-specific regulatory marks, we found enrichment of variants in CD19+ cells. We also found statistically-significant genetic correlations between BMI and lymphocyte count (p = 6.46 × 10⁻⁵, r_g = 0.18) and between BMI and multiple complex diseases.

These findings provide genetic evidence that lymphocytes are relevant to body weight regulation and offer insights into the pathogenesis of obesity.

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