Chromosomal regions strongly associated with waist circumference and body mass index in metabolic syndrome in a family-based study

Obesity is the most crucial phenotype in metabolic syndrome (MetS), and waist circumference (WC) and body mass index (BMI) are two common indexes to define obesity. It is an accepted fact that genetic and environmental interaction influence obesity and MetS. Microsatellites are a subcategory of tandem repeats with a length of 1 to 10 nucleotides. Tandem repeats make up repetitive genomic regions. Differences in the number of tandem repeats or their variation (alleles) result in microsatellite polymorphisms. Thus, we attempted to find microsatellite variation associated with WC and BMI in a family-based study. Twelve microsatellite markers were selected to investigate possible genes or chromosomal regions in 91 families with at least one affected MetS. The cut-off values for BMI and WC were considered 25 kg/m(2) and 90 cm, respectively. In all members of the families, the strongest association was observed between the marker D11S1304 (allele 1) with both WC and BMI, independently, by the biallelic model in the family-based association test analysis (P < 0.05). Besides, when we compared high- and low-level groups in members with MetS, the markers D8S1743 and D11S1304 (allele 1) showed a strong association with WC (P = 0.0080) and BMI (P = 0.0074), respectively. When the simultaneous detection of the high WC and MetS status was used as a trait, the strongest association was observed with the marker D8S1743 (P = 0.0034). Moreover, when BMI with the high MetS status was used as a trait, the strongest association was observed with the marker D8S1743 (allele 4) (P = 0.0034). The obtained results showed a relationship between obesity and MetS with markers on the selected regions on chromosomes 8 and 11, and to a lesser degree, on chromosome 12.