Genome-wide association study of body mass index in 23 000 individuals with and without asthma.

BACKGROUND: Both asthma and obesity are complex disorders that are influenced by environmental and genetic factors. Shared genetic factors between asthma and obesity have been proposed to partly explain epidemiological findings of co-morbidity between these conditions. OBJECTIVE: To identify genetic variants that are associated with body mass index (BMI) in asthmatic children and adults, and to evaluate if there are differences between the genetics of BMI in asthmatics and healthy individuals. METHODS: In total, 19 studies contributed with genome-wide analysis study (GWAS) data from more than 23 000 individuals with predominantly European descent, of whom 8165 are asthmatics. RESULTS: We report associations between several DENND1B variants (P = 2.2 × 10(-7) for rs4915551) on chromosome 1q31 and BMI from a meta-analysis of GWAS data using 2691 asthmatic children (screening data). The top DENND1B single nucleotide polymorphisms(SNPs) were next evaluated in seven independent replication data sets comprising 2014 asthmatics, and rs4915551 was nominally replicated (P < 0.05) in two of the seven studies and of borderline significance in one (P = 0.059). However, strong evidence of effect heterogeneity was observed and overall, the association between rs4915551 and BMI was not significant in the total replication data set, P = 0.71. Using a random effects model, BMI was overall estimated to increase by 0.30 kg/m(2) (P = 0.01 for combined screening and replication data sets, N = 4705) per additional G allele of this DENND1BSNP. FTO was confirmed as an important gene for adult and childhood BMI regardless of asthma status. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: DENND1B was recently identified as an asthma susceptibility gene in a GWAS on children, and here, we find evidence that DENND1B variants may also be associated with BMI in asthmatic children. However, the association was overall not replicated in the independent data sets and the heterogeneous effect of DENND1B points to complex associations with the studied diseases that deserve further study.

Low sodium diet corrects the defect in lymphocyte beta-adrenergic responsiveness in hypertensive subjects.

To determine the role of dietary sodium intake in the reduction in beta-adrenergic sensitivity in hypertension, lymphocyte beta-receptors from 8 borderline hypertensive and 16 normotensive subjects were studied after 5 d on a high sodium diet (400 meq/d) and also following a low sodium diet (10 meq/d). During the high sodium diet, lymphocyte beta-receptor-stimulated adenylate cyclase activity, expressed as the relative increase over basal levels stimulated by the beta-agonist isoproterenol, was significantly (P less than 0.025) decreased in hypertensive (24 +/- 5%, mean +/- SE) compared with normotensive (42 +/- 4%) subjects. Neither beta-receptor density nor the proportion of nonsequestered beta-receptors differed between groups. A low sodium diet significantly increased beta-receptor-stimulated adenylate cyclase activity in hypertensives (low sodium, 51 +/- 7%; high sodium, 24 +/- 5%, P less than 0.025) to a level not different than that of normotensives (46 +/- 5%). Thus, reduced lymphocyte beta-receptor responsiveness in hypertensive subjects is not due to beta-receptor sequestration and is corrected on a low sodium diet. Dietary sodium may be an important factor in the beta-receptor defect in early hypertension.

Lack of association of MYO9B genetic variants with coeliac disease in a British cohort.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Development of coeliac disease involves an interaction between environmental factors (especially dietary wheat, rye, and barley antigens) and genetic factors (there is strong inherited disease susceptibility). The known human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-DQ2 and -DQ8 association explains only a minority of disease heritability. A recent study in the Dutch population suggested that genetic variation in the 3' region of myosin IXB (MYO9B) predisposes to coeliac disease. MYO9B is a Rho family GTPase activating protein involved in epithelial cell cytoskeletal organisation. MYO9B is hypothesised to influence intestinal permeability and hence intestinal antigen presentation. METHODS: Four single nucleotide polymorphisms were chosen to tag all common haplotypes of the MYO9B 3' haplotype block (exons 15-27). We genotyped 375 coeliac disease cases and 1366 controls (371 healthy and 995 population based). All individuals were of White UK Caucasian ethnicity. RESULTS: UK healthy control and population control allele frequencies were similar for all MYO9B variants. Case control analysis showed no significant association of any variant or haplotype with coeliac disease. CONCLUSIONS: Genetic variation in MYO9B does not have a major effect on coeliac disease susceptibility in the UK population. Differences between populations, a weaker effect size than originally described, or possibly a type I error in the Dutch study might explain these findings.

Beta-adrenergic-receptor-mediated suppression of interleukin 2 receptors in human lymphocytes.

Adrenergic receptor agonists are known to attenuate the proliferative response of human lymphocytes after activation; however, their mechanism of action is unknown. Since expression of interleukin 2 (IL-2) receptors is a prerequisite for proliferation, the effect of beta-adrenergic receptor agonists on lymphocyte IL-2 receptors was studied on both mitogen-stimulated lymphocytes and IL-2-dependent T lymphocyte cell lines. In both cell types the beta-adrenergic receptor agonist isoproterenol blocked the expression of IL-2 receptors, as determined with the IL-2 receptor anti-TAC antibody. To determine the effect of beta-adrenergic agonists on expression of the high affinity IL-2 receptors, [125I]IL-2 binding studies were performed at concentrations selective for high affinity sites. No significant effect of beta-adrenergic agonists on high affinity IL-2 receptor sites could be detected. The data demonstrate that beta-adrenergic receptor agonists down-regulate IL-2 receptors primarily affecting low affinity sites.