eQTL Study Uncovers New Candidate Genes for Adipose Tissue Biology

Researchers have identified new candidate genes involved in adipose tissue biology through an expression quantitative trait loci study of a Greek population. As they report in BMC Genomics, a team from the Biomedical Sciences Research Center Alexander Fleming in Athens and elsewhere conducted eQTL mapping in subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue from more than 100 individuals from the Greek Metabolic study. They identified 1,930 genes with at least one cis-eQTL, or eGenes, in subcutaneous adipose tissue and 1,515 eGenes in visceral adipose tissue. When they compared their eGene findings to those from the Genotype-Tissue Expression Project, the researchers noted that more than 13 percent were not reported in the GTEx adipose tissue. As this not appear to stem from differences in allele frequency between the groups, the researchers suggested that some of these differences could be due to variations in environmental exposure. For instance, some of the eGenes they uncovered, such as MIR21 and SNX33, are known to regulate responses to environmental exposures. "By focusing on an understudied population, our results provide further candidate genes for investigation regarding their role in adipose tissue biology and their contribution to disease risk and pathogenesis," the researchers write in their paper.