Craniofacial reconstruction of critical bone defects typically requires a bone graft. As graft availability may be restricted by disease or comorbidities, tissue engineering approaches are actively so Show more
Craniofacial reconstruction of critical bone defects typically requires a bone graft. As graft availability may be restricted by disease or comorbidities, tissue engineering approaches are actively sought. The pericranium could provide new bone graft material. During development and repair, bone transitions through a chondrogenic phase. However, with tissue engineering, pluripotent cells can differentiate directly into bone cells. Does ability to recapitulate bone formation Show less
Recent large-scale genome-wide association studies identified novel genetic variants associated with obesity and body mass index (BMI) in addition to the well-described FTO and MC4R genetic variants. Show more
Recent large-scale genome-wide association studies identified novel genetic variants associated with obesity and body mass index (BMI) in addition to the well-described FTO and MC4R genetic variants. This study aimed to examine 13 previously reported obesity and/or BMI-associated loci for associations with obesity in Chinese. This was a cross-sectional case-control study in 470 obese cases (BMI > or =27.5 kg/m(2)) and 700 normal-weight controls (18.5 < or = BMI < or = 23.0 kg/m(2)). A significant association with obesity could be replicated (one tailed P < 0.05) in seven of the 13 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the case-control study. These included GNPDA2 rs10938397 (P = 7.3 x 10(-4)); FTO rs8050136 (P = 8 x 10(-4)); MC4R rs17782313 (P = 1.2 x 10(-3)); KCTD15 rs29941 (P = 8 x 10(-3)); SFRS10-ETV5-DGKG rs7647305 (P = 0.023); SEC16B-RASAL2 rs10913469 (P = 0.041); and NEGR1 rs3101336 (P = 0.046). Combined genetic risk scores were calculated, and we observed ORs ranging from 1.17 to 1.23 for each unit increase in the genetic risk scores. Associations with obesity-related quantitative traits were analyzed separately for cases and controls. KCTD15 SNP rs29941 (P = 1 x 10(-3)) was significantly associated with fasting glucose in the control group, whereas only the FTO SNP rs8050136 was associated with BMI (P = 3.5 x 10(-3)) in the obese group. However, in an extension study of 1938 subjects from the population-based Hong Kong Cardiovascular Risk Factors Prevalence Study, rs8050136, rs10938397, and rs17782313 showed significant associations with BMI. We have succeeded in replicating, in a Chinese population, the associations with obesity in seven SNPs reported in recent genome-wide association studies. Further functional and fine-mapping studies to elucidate the roles of these putative obesity-related genes and genetic variants are warranted. Show less