Section of Stress Research, Department of Psychosomatic Research, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Tokyo, Japan.
Vitam Horm. 2013;92:107-23. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-410473-0.00004-0.
Genetic factors have been implicated in playing a significant role in susceptibility to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Genetic variants of ghrelin, an endogenous acylated peptide that stimulates growth hormone secretion, enhances appetite, and increases body weight, have been investigated in association with eating disorders, as changes in the ghrelin/growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR)/ghrelin O-acyltransferase (GOAT) system have been implicated in its pathology. Although most candidate-gene association studies have not been able to identify ghrelin gene variants as being significantly associated with either AN or BN, some ghrelin variants may be associated with BN in Japanese. Furthermore, a significant association of a GHSR gene variant with BN and that of a GOAT gene variant with AN have been found. However, there have been relatively few studies, tested variants are restricted, and sample sizes are often modest. Therefore, further studies are needed to elucidate the role of ghrelin-related gene variants in the predisposition and pathology of eating disorders.
遗传因素在易感性方面发挥着重要作用，例如与饮食失调相关的神经性厌食症（AN）和神经性贪食症（BN）。内源性酰化肽ghrelin 可以刺激生长激素的分泌，增加食欲并增加体重，其遗传变异与饮食失调有关，因为 ghrelin/生长激素促分泌素受体（GHSR）/ghrelin O-酰基转移酶（GOAT）系统的变化与它的发病机制有关。尽管大多数候选基因关联研究未能确定 ghrelin 基因变异与 AN 或 BN 有显著相关性，但一些 ghrelin 变异可能与日本的 BN 有关。此外，还发现了 GHSR 基因变异与 BN 显著相关，以及 GOAT 基因变异与 AN 显著相关。然而，此类研究相对较少，检测到的变异也受到限制，样本量通常也较小。因此，需要进一步的研究来阐明 ghrelin 相关基因变异在饮食失调易感性和发病机制中的作用。
