Meta-analysis added power to identify variants in FTO associated with type 2 diabetes and obesity in the Asian population.

Several common variants in the intron 1 of FTO (fat mass and associated obesity) gene have been reliably associated with BMI and obesity in European populations. We analyzed two variants (rs9939609 and rs8050136) in 4,189 Chinese Han individuals and conducted a meta-analysis of published studies in Asian population to investigate whether these variants are associated with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and obesity in Asian population. In this study, both the minor allele A of rs9939609 and the minor allele A of rs805136 were associated with increased risk of T2D, independent of measures of BMI; the odds ratios (ORs) per copy of the risk allele were 1.19 for rs9939609 (95% confidence interval (CI), 1.04-1.37; P = 0.01) and 1.22 for rs8050136 (95% CI, 1.07-1.40; P = 0.004) after adjusting for age, sex, and BMI. Our results also showed association with risk of obesity (rs9939609: OR = 1.39 (95% CI 1.04-1.85), P = 0.02; rs8050136: OR = 1.45 (95% CI 1.09-1.93), P = 0.01) but no association with overweight. These results were consistent with the pooled results from our meta-analysis study (for diabetes, rs8050136, P = 1.3 x 10(-3); rs9939609, P = 9.8 x 10(-4); for obesity, rs8050136, P = 2.2 x 10(-7); rs9939609, P = 9.0 x 10(-9)). Our findings indicate that the two variants (rs9939609 and rs8050136) in the FTO gene contribute to obesity and T2D in the Asian populations.