Development of a Genetic Risk Score to Predict the Risk of Overweight and Obesity in European Adolescents from the HELENA Study

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2021 Feb 5

PMID 33542408

Citations 14

Authors

Miguel Seral-Cortes

Sergio Sabroso-Lasa

Pilar De Miguel-Etayo

Marcela Gonzalez-Gross

Eva Gesteiro

Cristina Molina-Hidalgo

Stefaan de Henauw

Frederic Gottrand

Christina Mavrogianni

Yannis Manios

Maria Plada

Kurt Widhalm

Anthony Kafatos

Eva Erhardt

Aline Meirhaeghe

Diego Salazar-Tortosa

Jonatan Ruiz

Luis A Moreno

Luis Mariano Esteban

Idoia Labayen

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Obesity is the result of interactions between genes and environmental factors. Since monogenic etiology is only known in some obesity-related genes, a genetic risk score (GRS) could be useful to determine the genetic predisposition to obesity. Therefore, the aim of our study was to build a GRS able to predict genetic predisposition to overweight and obesity in European adolescents. A total of 1069 adolescents (51.3% female), aged 11-19 years participating in the Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence (HELENA) cross-sectional study were genotyped. The sample was divided in non-overweight (non-OW) and overweight/obesity (OW/OB). From 611 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) available, a first screening of 104 SNPs univariately associated with obesity (p < 0.20) was established selecting 21 significant SNPs (p < 0.05) in the multivariate model. Unweighted GRS (uGRS) was calculated by summing the number of risk alleles and weighted GRS (wGRS) by multiplying the risk alleles to each estimated coefficient. The area under curve (AUC) was calculated in uGRS (0.723) and wGRS (0.734) using tenfold internal cross-validation. Both uGRS and wGRS were significantly associated with body mass index (BMI) (p < .001). Both GRSs could potentially be considered as useful genetic tools to evaluate individual's predisposition to overweight/obesity in European adolescents.

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