Effect of obesity on the association between common variations in the HNF1A gene region and C-reactive protein level in Taiwanese

Background: The level of C-reactive protein (CRP), an inflammatory biomarker that predicts future cardiovascular events, is a heritable trait that has been associated with variants of CRP and hepatic nuclear factor-1α (HNF1A) genes. Our aim was to test the statistical association between HNF1A genotypes/haplotypes and serum CRP level in Taiwanese.

Methods: A sample population of 617 Taiwanese subjects (all Han-Chinese origin) was enrolled. Five HNF1A single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) rs1920792, rs1169288, rs7310409, rs2464196, rs1169310 were genotyped and analyzed.

Results: After adjusting for clinical covariates, minor alleles of all the 5 study SNPs were associated with decreased CRP level (P=0.0078, P=0.0107, P=0.0006, P=0.0004 and P=0.0003, respectively). A common haplotype (TGATA) tagged by the minor alleles of study SNPs was associated with significantly decreased CRP level (P=0.0112). Subgroup analysis revealed that the association between HNF1A genotypes and CRP level occurred only in non-obese subjects.

Conclusions: HNF1A polymorphisms are independently associated with CRP level in Taiwanese. Further, HNF1A genotypes interact with obesity to set CRP level, revealing that genetic determinants for CRP level may be different between obese and non-obese individuals.