Estrogen Receptor 1 (ESR1) Gene Polymorphisms and Obesity Phenotypes in a Population of Young Adults

Abstract

Obesity is considered an increasingly serious health problem determined by multiple genetic and environmental factors. Estrogens have been found to play a major role in body weight and adiposity regulation through estrogen receptor 1 ( ESR1). The aim of this study was to determine whether genotype and haplotype frequencies of ESR1 polymorphisms are associated with body composition measures in a population of 572 young adults. A lack of significant association between genotypes of ESR1 gene polymorphisms and obesity phenotypes was seen after adjustment for confounding factors. Linkage disequilibrium (LD) analysis identified a single LD block for the ESR1 gene including PvuII and XbaI single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (pairwise r2 = .66). None of the haplotypes identified revealed statistically significant associations with any of the obesity phenotypes. Our results suggest that polymorphisms of the ESR1 gene do not contribute significantly to the genetic risk for obesity phenotypes in a population of young Caucasian adults.