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. 2018 Jun;42(4):378-393.
doi: 10.1002/gepi.22114. Epub 2018 Feb 20.

Genetic and environmental (physical fitness and sedentary activity) interaction effects on cardiometabolic risk factors in Mexican American children and adolescents

Rector Arya  1   2 , Vidya S Farook  1   2 , Sharon P Fowler  3 , Sobha Puppala  4 , Geetha Chittoor  5 , Roy G Resendez  1   2 , Srinivas Mummidi  1   2 , Jairam Vanamala  6 , Laura Almasy  7 , Joanne E Curran  1   2 , Anthony G Comuzzie  8 , Donna M Lehman  9 , Christopher P Jenkinson  1   2 , Jane L Lynch  10 , Ralph A DeFronzo  11 , John Blangero  1   2 , Daniel E Hale  12 , Ravindranath Duggirala  1   2 , Vincent P Diego  1   2
Affiliations

Genetic and environmental (physical fitness and sedentary activity) interaction effects on cardiometabolic risk factors in Mexican American children and adolescents

Rector Arya et al. Genet Epidemiol. 2018 Jun.

Abstract

Knowledge on genetic and environmental (G × E) interaction effects on cardiometabolic risk factors (CMRFs) in children is limited. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of G × E interaction effects on CMRFs in Mexican American (MA) children (n = 617, ages 6-17 years). The environments examined were sedentary activity (SA), assessed by recalls from "yesterday" (SAy) and "usually" (SAu) and physical fitness (PF) assessed by Harvard PF scores (HPFS). CMRF data included body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), fat mass (FM), fasting insulin (FI), homeostasis model of assessment-insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), triglycerides (TG), systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure, and number of metabolic syndrome components (MSC). We examined potential G × E interaction in the phenotypic expression of CMRFs using variance component models and likelihood-based statistical inference. Significant G × SA interactions were identified for six CMRFs: BMI, WC, FI, HOMA-IR, MSC, and HDL, and significant G × HPFS interactions were observed for four CMRFs: BMI, WC, FM, and HOMA-IR. However, after correcting for multiple hypothesis testing, only WC × SAy, FM × SAy, and FI × SAu interactions became marginally significant. After correcting for multiple testing, most of CMRFs exhibited significant G × E interactions (Reduced G × E model vs. Constrained model). These findings provide evidence that genetic factors interact with SA and PF to influence variation in CMRFs, and underscore the need for better understanding of these relationships to develop strategies and interventions to effectively reduce or prevent cardiometabolic risk in children.

Keywords: G × E interaction; childhood obesity; genetic correlation; genetic variance; lifestyle modification; physical inactivity; sedentary behavior.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Additive Genetic Variance Functions. Left panel: Fat Mass_HPFS. Right panel: DBP_SAu (blue), FI_SAu (green), BMI_SAy (purple), FI_SAy (yellow), and WC_SAy (brown).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Genetic Correlation Functions. Left panel: BMI_HPFS (red), HOMA-IR_HPFS (blue), and WC_HPFS (green). Right panel: HOMA_IR_SAu (red), MSC_SAu (orange), WC_SAu (yellow), BMI_SAy (green), FM_SAy (blue), HDL_SAy (purple), and HOMA-IR_SAy (violet).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Additive Genetic Covariance Function for BMI. The covariance function is here expressed as a joint function of the additive genetic variance and genetic correlation functions.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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