Vistoropsky Yulia, Trofimov Svetlana, Malkin Ida, Kobyliansky Eugene, Livshits Gregory
Department of Anatomy and Anthropology, Human Population Biology Research Unit, Israel.
Ann Hum Biol. 2008 Jan-Feb;35(1):93-103. doi: 10.1080/03014460701822003.
Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a member of the adipocytokine family; it is implicated in tissue repair, regeneration, and angiogenesis. Several studies have reported that the HGF plays important role in obesity and cardiovascular disease.
This study examines whether HGF and its phenotypic correlations with obesity and blood pressure (BP), in healthy individuals, are due to shared genetic or common environmental factors.
Body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), BP, and HGF plasma concentrations were measured in a sample of 733 individuals belonging to 248 pedigrees.
The most significant phenotypic correlations were found among HGF, WHR, and systolic BP (p < 0.001). Analysis of the familial aggregation revealed that parent-offspring and sibling correlations in HGF levels, adjusted for age, age(2), and sex, were statistically highly significant (p < 0.001). Variance decomposition analysis showed that when adjusted for potential covariates, 48.4% of the HGF variation was due to putative genetic factors. The genetic correlations between all pairs of studied traits (HGF, WHR, and SBP) were statistically significant (p < 0.02) and ranged between 0.23 +/- 0.07 and 0.40 +/- 0.07. However, correlation between WHR and BP becomes non-significant after adjustment for HGF.
The results provide evidence that putative genetic factors involved in regulation of HGF variation contribute also significantly to variation of the obesity and BP. It is possible that the familial resemblance for WHR and the SBP correlation in the studied sample is affected substantially by genetic factors regulating circulating HGF levels.
肝细胞生长因子（HGF）是脂肪细胞因子家族的一员；它与组织修复、再生及血管生成有关。多项研究报道HGF在肥胖和心血管疾病中起重要作用。
本研究旨在探讨在健康个体中，HGF及其与肥胖和血压（BP）的表型相关性是否归因于共享基因或共同环境因素。
对来自248个家系的733名个体进行了体重指数（BMI）、腰臀比（WHR）、血压及血浆HGF浓度的测量。
在HGF、WHR和收缩压之间发现了最显著的表型相关性（p < 0.001）。家族聚集性分析显示，经年龄、年龄²和性别校正后，HGF水平的亲子及同胞相关性具有高度统计学意义（p < 0.001）。方差分解分析表明，校正潜在协变量后，48.4%的HGF变异归因于假定的遗传因素。所有研究性状对（HGF、WHR和收缩压）之间的遗传相关性具有统计学意义（p < 0.02），范围在0.23±0.07至0.40±0.07之间。然而，校正HGF后，WHR与血压之间的相关性变得不显著。
结果表明，参与调节HGF变异的假定遗传因素也对肥胖和血压的变异有显著贡献。在研究样本中，WHR的家族相似性和收缩压相关性可能受到调节循环HGF水平的遗传因素的实质性影响。
