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. 2010 Nov;42(11):937-48.
doi: 10.1038/ng.686. Epub 2010 Oct 10.

Association analyses of 249,796 individuals reveal 18 new loci associated with body mass index

Elizabeth K Speliotes  1 , Cristen J Willer, Sonja I Berndt, Keri L Monda, Gudmar Thorleifsson, Anne U Jackson, Hana Lango Allen, Cecilia M Lindgren, Jian'an Luan, Reedik Mägi, Joshua C Randall, Sailaja Vedantam, Thomas W Winkler, Lu Qi, Tsegaselassie Workalemahu, Iris M Heid, Valgerdur Steinthorsdottir, Heather M Stringham, Michael N Weedon, Eleanor Wheeler, Andrew R Wood, Teresa Ferreira, Robert J Weyant, Ayellet V Segrè, Karol Estrada, Liming Liang, James Nemesh, Ju-Hyun Park, Stefan Gustafsson, Tuomas O Kilpeläinen, Jian Yang, Nabila Bouatia-Naji, Tõnu Esko, Mary F Feitosa, Zoltán Kutalik, Massimo Mangino, Soumya Raychaudhuri, Andre Scherag, Albert Vernon Smith, Ryan Welch, Jing Hua Zhao, Katja K Aben, Devin M Absher, Najaf Amin, Anna L Dixon, Eva Fisher, Nicole L Glazer, Michael E Goddard, Nancy L Heard-Costa, Volker Hoesel, Jouke-Jan Hottenga, Asa Johansson, Toby Johnson, Shamika Ketkar, Claudia Lamina, Shengxu Li, Miriam F Moffatt, Richard H Myers, Narisu Narisu, John R B Perry, Marjolein J Peters, Michael Preuss, Samuli Ripatti, Fernando Rivadeneira, Camilla Sandholt, Laura J Scott, Nicholas J Timpson, Jonathan P Tyrer, Sophie van Wingerden, Richard M Watanabe, Charles C White, Fredrik Wiklund, Christina Barlassina, Daniel I Chasman, Matthew N Cooper, John-Olov Jansson, Robert W Lawrence, Niina Pellikka, Inga Prokopenko, Jianxin Shi, Elisabeth Thiering, Helene Alavere, Maria T S Alibrandi, Peter Almgren, Alice M Arnold, Thor Aspelund, Larry D Atwood, Beverley Balkau, Anthony J Balmforth, Amanda J Bennett, Yoav Ben-Shlomo, Richard N Bergman, Sven Bergmann, Heike Biebermann, Alexandra I F Blakemore, Tanja Boes, Lori L Bonnycastle, Stefan R Bornstein, Morris J Brown, Thomas A Buchanan, Fabio Busonero, Harry Campbell, Francesco P Cappuccio, Christine Cavalcanti-Proença, Yii-Der Ida Chen, Chih-Mei Chen, Peter S Chines, Robert Clarke, Lachlan Coin, John Connell, Ian N M Day, Martin den Heijer, Jubao Duan, Shah Ebrahim, Paul Elliott, Roberto Elosua, Gudny Eiriksdottir, Michael R Erdos, Johan G Eriksson, Maurizio F Facheris, Stephan B Felix, Pamela Fischer-Posovszky, Aaron R Folsom, Nele Friedrich, Nelson B Freimer, Mao Fu, Stefan Gaget, Pablo V Gejman, Eco J C Geus, Christian Gieger, Anette P Gjesing, Anuj Goel, Philippe Goyette, Harald Grallert, Jürgen Grässler, Danielle M Greenawalt, Christopher J Groves, Vilmundur Gudnason, Candace Guiducci, Anna-Liisa Hartikainen, Neelam Hassanali, Alistair S Hall, Aki S Havulinna, Caroline Hayward, Andrew C Heath, Christian Hengstenberg, Andrew A Hicks, Anke Hinney, Albert Hofman, Georg Homuth, Jennie Hui, Wilmar Igl, Carlos Iribarren, Bo Isomaa, Kevin B Jacobs, Ivonne Jarick, Elizabeth Jewell, Ulrich John, Torben Jørgensen, Pekka Jousilahti, Antti Jula, Marika Kaakinen, Eero Kajantie, Lee M Kaplan, Sekar Kathiresan, Johannes Kettunen, Leena Kinnunen, Joshua W Knowles, Ivana Kolcic, Inke R König, Seppo Koskinen, Peter Kovacs, Johanna Kuusisto, Peter Kraft, Kirsti Kvaløy, Jaana Laitinen, Olivier Lantieri, Chiara Lanzani, Lenore J Launer, Cecile Lecoeur, Terho Lehtimäki, Guillaume Lettre, Jianjun Liu, Marja-Liisa Lokki, Mattias Lorentzon, Robert N Luben, Barbara Ludwig; MAGIC; Paolo Manunta, Diana Marek, Michel Marre, Nicholas G Martin, Wendy L McArdle, Anne McCarthy, Barbara McKnight, Thomas Meitinger, Olle Melander, David Meyre, Kristian Midthjell, Grant W Montgomery, Mario A Morken, Andrew P Morris, Rosanda Mulic, Julius S Ngwa, Mari Nelis, Matt J Neville, Dale R Nyholt, Christopher J O'Donnell, Stephen O'Rahilly, Ken K Ong, Ben Oostra, Guillaume Paré, Alex N Parker, Markus Perola, Irene Pichler, Kirsi H Pietiläinen, Carl G P Platou, Ozren Polasek, Anneli Pouta, Suzanne Rafelt, Olli Raitakari, Nigel W Rayner, Martin Ridderstråle, Winfried Rief, Aimo Ruokonen, Neil R Robertson, Peter Rzehak, Veikko Salomaa, Alan R Sanders, Manjinder S Sandhu, Serena Sanna, Jouko Saramies, Markku J Savolainen, Susann Scherag, Sabine Schipf, Stefan Schreiber, Heribert Schunkert, Kaisa Silander, Juha Sinisalo, David S Siscovick, Jan H Smit, Nicole Soranzo, Ulla Sovio, Jonathan Stephens, Ida Surakka, Amy J Swift, Mari-Liis Tammesoo, Jean-Claude Tardif, Maris Teder-Laving, Tanya M Teslovich, John R Thompson, Brian Thomson, Anke Tönjes, Tiinamaija Tuomi, Joyce B J van Meurs, Gert-Jan van Ommen, Vincent Vatin, Jorma Viikari, Sophie Visvikis-Siest, Veronique Vitart, Carla I G Vogel, Benjamin F Voight, Lindsay L Waite, Henri Wallaschofski, G Bragi Walters, Elisabeth Widen, Susanna Wiegand, Sarah H Wild, Gonneke Willemsen, Daniel R Witte, Jacqueline C Witteman, Jianfeng Xu, Qunyuan Zhang, Lina Zgaga, Andreas Ziegler, Paavo Zitting, John P Beilby, I Sadaf Farooqi, Johannes Hebebrand, Heikki V Huikuri, Alan L James, Mika Kähönen, Douglas F Levinson, Fabio Macciardi, Markku S Nieminen, Claes Ohlsson, Lyle J Palmer, Paul M Ridker, Michael Stumvoll, Jacques S Beckmann, Heiner Boeing, Eric Boerwinkle, Dorret I Boomsma, Mark J Caulfield, Stephen J Chanock, Francis S Collins, L Adrienne Cupples, George Davey Smith, Jeanette Erdmann, Philippe Froguel, Henrik Grönberg, Ulf Gyllensten, Per Hall, Torben Hansen, Tamara B Harris, Andrew T Hattersley, Richard B Hayes, Joachim Heinrich, Frank B Hu, Kristian Hveem, Thomas Illig, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Jaakko Kaprio, Fredrik Karpe, Kay-Tee Khaw, Lambertus A Kiemeney, Heiko Krude, Markku Laakso, Debbie A Lawlor, Andres Metspalu, Patricia B Munroe, Willem H Ouwehand, Oluf Pedersen, Brenda W Penninx, Annette Peters, Peter P Pramstaller, Thomas Quertermous, Thomas Reinehr, Aila Rissanen, Igor Rudan, Nilesh J Samani, Peter E H Schwarz, Alan R Shuldiner, Timothy D Spector, Jaakko Tuomilehto, Manuela Uda, André Uitterlinden, Timo T Valle, Martin Wabitsch, Gérard Waeber, Nicholas J Wareham, Hugh Watkins; Procardis Consortium; James F Wilson, Alan F Wright, M Carola Zillikens, Nilanjan Chatterjee, Steven A McCarroll, Shaun Purcell, Eric E Schadt, Peter M Visscher, Themistocles L Assimes, Ingrid B Borecki, Panos Deloukas, Caroline S Fox, Leif C Groop, Talin Haritunians, David J Hunter, Robert C Kaplan, Karen L Mohlke, Jeffrey R O'Connell, Leena Peltonen, David Schlessinger, David P Strachan, Cornelia M van Duijn, H-Erich Wichmann, Timothy M Frayling, Unnur Thorsteinsdottir, Gonçalo R Abecasis, Inês Barroso, Michael Boehnke, Kari Stefansson, Kari E North, Mark I McCarthy, Joel N Hirschhorn, Erik Ingelsson, Ruth J F Loos
Affiliations

Association analyses of 249,796 individuals reveal 18 new loci associated with body mass index

Elizabeth K Speliotes et al. Nat Genet. 2010 Nov.

Abstract

Obesity is globally prevalent and highly heritable, but its underlying genetic factors remain largely elusive. To identify genetic loci for obesity susceptibility, we examined associations between body mass index and ∼ 2.8 million SNPs in up to 123,865 individuals with targeted follow up of 42 SNPs in up to 125,931 additional individuals. We confirmed 14 known obesity susceptibility loci and identified 18 new loci associated with body mass index (P < 5 × 10⁻⁸), one of which includes a copy number variant near GPRC5B. Some loci (at MC4R, POMC, SH2B1 and BDNF) map near key hypothalamic regulators of energy balance, and one of these loci is near GIPR, an incretin receptor. Furthermore, genes in other newly associated loci may provide new insights into human body weight regulation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests statement

The authors declare competing financial interests. A full list of competing interests appears in the Supplementary Note.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Genome-wide association results for the BMI meta-analysis
(a) Manhattan plot showing the significance of association between all SNPs and BMI in the stage 1 meta-analysis, highlighting SNPs previously reported to show genome-wide significant association with BMI (blue), weight or waist circumference (green), and the 18 new regions described here (red). The 19 SNPs that reached genome-wide significance at Stage 1 (13 previously reported and 6 new) are listed in Table 1). (b) Quantile-quantile (Q-Q) plot of SNPs in stage 1 meta-analysis (black) and after removing any SNPs within 1 Mb of the 10 previously reported genome-wide significant hits for BMI (blue), after additionally excluding SNPs from the four loci for waist/weight (green) and after excluding SNPs from all 32 confirmed loci (red). The plot was abridged at the Y-axis (at P < 10−20) to better visualise the excess of small P-values after excluding the 32 confirmed loci (Supplementary Fig. 3 shows full-scale Q-Q plot). The shaded region is the 95% concentration band. (c) Plot of effect size (in inverse normally transformed units (invBMI)) versus effect allele frequency of newly identified and previously identified BMI variants after stage 1 + stage 2 analysis; including the 10 previously identified BMI loci (blue), the four previously identified waist and weight loci (green) and the 18 newly identified BMI loci (blue). The dotted lines represent the minimum effect sizes that could be identified for a given effect-allele frequency with 80% (upper line), 50% (middle line), and 10% (lower line) power, assuming a sample size of 123,000 individuals and a α-level of 5×10−8.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Combined impact of risk alleles on BMI/obesity
(a) Combined effect of risk alleles on average BMI in the population-based Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study (n = 8,120 individuals of European descent). For each individual, the number of “best guess” replicated (n = 32) risk alleles from imputed data (0,1,2) per SNP was weighted for their relative effect sizes estimated from the stage 2 data. Weighted risk alleles were summed for each individual and the overall individual sum was rounded to the nearest integer to represent the individual’s risk allele score (range 16–44). Along the x-axis, individuals in each risk allele category are shown (grouped ≤21 and ≥38 at the extremes), and the mean BMI (+/− SEM) is plotted (y axis on right), with the line representing the regression of the mean BMI values across the risk-allele scores. The histogram (y-axis on left) represents the number of individuals in each risk-score category. (b) The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of two different models predicting the risk of obesity (BMI = ≥30 kg/m2) in the n = 8,120 genotyped individuals of European descent in the ARIC Study. Model 1, represented by the solid line, includes age, age2, and sex (AUC = 0.515, P = 0.023 for difference from AUCnull = 0.50). Model 2, represented by the dashed line, includes age, age2, sex, and the n = 32 confirmed BMI SNPs (AUC = 0.0575, P < 10−5 for difference from AUCnull = 0.50). The difference between both AUCs is significant (P < 10−4).
Figure 3
Figure 3. Regional plots of selected replicating BMI loci with missense and CNV variants
SNPs are plotted by position on chromosome against association with BMI (−log10 P-value). The SNP name shown on the plot was the most significant SNP after stage 1 meta-analysis. Estimated recombination rates (from HapMap) are plotted in cyan to reflect the local LD structure. The SNPs surrounding the most significant SNP are color-coded to reflect their LD with this SNP (taken from pairwise r2 values from the HapMap CEU database, www.hapmap.org). Genes, position of exons, and direction of transcription from UCSC genome browser (http://genome.ucsc.edu) are noted. Hashmarks represent SNP positions available in the meta-analysis. (a, b, c) Missense variants noted with their amino acid change for the gene noted above the plot. (d) Structural haplotypes and BMI association signal in the GPRC5B region. A 21 kb deletion polymorphism is associated with 4 SNPs (r2=1.0) that comprise the best haplogroup associating with BMI. Plots were generated using LocusZoom (http://csg.sph.umich.edu/locuszoom).
Figure 4
Figure 4. Phenotypic variance explained by common variants
(a) Variance explained is higher when SNPs not reaching genome-wide significance are included in the prediction model. The y-axis represents the proportion of variance explained at different P-value thresholds from stage 1 meta-analysis. Results are given for three studies (RSII, RSIII, QIMR), which were not included in the meta-analysis, after exclusion of all samples from The Netherlands (for RSII and RSIII) and the United Kingdom (for QIMR) from the discovery analysis for this sub-analysis. The dotted line represents the weighted average of the explained variance of three validation sets. (b) Cumulative number of susceptibility loci expected to be discovered, including those we have already identified and others that have yet to be detected, by the expected percentage of phenotypic variation explained and sample size required for a one-stage GWA study assuming a GC correction is utilized. The projections are based on loci that achieved a significance level of P < 5×10−8 in the joint analysis of stage 1 and stage 2 and the distribution of their effect sizes in stage 2. The dotted red line corresponds to the expected phenotypic variance explained by the 22 loci that are expected to be discovered in a one-stage GWAS with the sample size of stage 1 of this study.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Second signal at the MC4R locus contributing to BMI
SNPs are plotted by position in a 1 Mb window of chromosome 18 against association with BMI ( log10 P-value). Panel (a) highlights the most significant SNP in stage 1 meta-analysis, panel (b) the most significant SNP after conditional analysis where the model included the most strongly associated SNP from panel A as a covariate. Estimated recombination rates (from HapMap) are plotted in cyan to reflect the local LD structure. The SNPs surrounding the most significant SNP are color-coded to reflect their LD with this SNP (taken from pairwise r2 values from the HapMap CEU database, www.hapmap.org). Genes, exons, and direction of transcription from UCSC genome browser (genome.ucsc.edu) are noted. Hashmarks at the top of the figure represent positions of SNPs in the meta-analysis. Regional plots were generated using LocusZoom (http://csg.sph.umich.edu/locuszoom).
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