Lack of Association of the Ghrelin Gene Arg51Gln Single Nucleotide Polymorphism with Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome among Multi-ethnic Malaysian Subjects

Obesity and metabolic syndrome has become a public health concern because of its association with a number of medical complications that lead to increased morbidity and mortality. Ghrelin is a hormone that is primarily secreted in the stomach, which plays an important role to increase hunger through its action on hypothalamic feeding. The Ghrelin gene Arg51Gln single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) (rs34911341) has been associated with obesity and metabolic syndrome in previous studies. Therefore, this study was to examine the prevalence of this SNP and its association with obesity, obesity-related traits and metabolic syndrome among 184 multi-ethnic Malaysian subjects (67 males, 117 females; 76 obese, 108 non obese; 52 Malay, 91 ethnic Chinese, 41 ethnic Indians) from the Kampar Health Clinic cohort. Demographic data, anthropometric and clinical measurements of subjects were collected. Genotyping was performed by using the genomic DNA extracted from leukocytes, followed by Polymerase Chain Reaction and SacI Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism, revealing 113 GG, 70 GA and 1 AA subjects; minor allele frequency 0.196. Arg51Gln alleles did not show any association with obesity (p = 0.643), gender (p = 0.064) and ethnicity (p = 0.390). Besides, it did not show any association with the presence of metabolic syndrome according to 3 criteria in the modified NCEP ATP III for Asians (p = 0.931). Anthropometric and clinical measurements indicative of obesity and metabolic syndrome were also all not significantly different between the alleles. In conclusion, the Ghrelin Arg51Gln gene variant was not associated with obesity, obesity-related traits and metabolic syndrome among Malaysian subjects in this study.