A Validation Study of Adiponectin rs266729 Gene Variant with Type 2 Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolic Phenotypes in a Taiwanese Population.

Previous data suggesting that a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), rs266729, in the adiponectin C1Q and collagen domain containing (ADIPOQ) gene was associated with type 2 diabetes (T2D) have been inconsistent, especially in Asian populations. In this replication study, we aimed to reassess whether the ADIPOQ rs266729 SNP is associated with T2D, obesity, and T2D/obesity-related metabolic traits in a Taiwanese population. A total of 1047 Taiwanese subjects were analyzed. The ADIPOQ rs266729 SNP was genotyped by the Taqman assay. T2D/obesity-related metabolic traits such as triglyceride, waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, creatinine, alanine aminotransferase, and fasting glucose were measured. Our data revealed that the ADIPOQ rs266729 SNP exhibited no association with T2D among the subjects. In addition, no evidence for an association with obesity (BMI ≧27 kg/m) was found for the ADIPOQ rs266729 SNP. Moreover, the ADIPOQ rs266729 SNP did not show any association with T2D/obesity-related metabolic traits among the complete subjects. However, we found an effect modification of obesity on the association between the ADIPOQ rs266729 SNP and total cholesterol (P = 0.00068) only in obese participants after adjusting for age, gender, BMI, and T2D status. Our study indicates that the ADIPOQ rs266729 SNP may influence T2D/obesity-related metabolic traits such as total cholesterol in obese Taiwanese subjects (but not in non-obese subjects).