Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies in East Asian-ancestry populations identifies four new loci for body mass index

[[abstract]]Recent genetic association studies have identified 55 genetic loci associated with obesity or body mass index (BMI). The vast majority, 51 loci, however, were identified in European-ancestry populations. We conducted a meta-analysis of associations between BMI and approximately 2.5 million genotyped or imputed SNPs among 86 757 individuals of Asian ancestry, followed by in silico and de novo replication among 7488 to 47 352 additional Asian-ancestry individuals. We identified four novel BMI-associated loci near the KCNQ1 (rs2237892, P=9.29x10-13), ALDH2/MYL2 (rs671, P=3.40x10-11; rs12229654, P=4.56x10-9), ITIH4 (rs2535633, P=1.77x10-10), and NT5C2 (rs11191580, P=3.83x10-8) genes. The association of BMI with rs2237892, rs671, and rs12229654 was significantly stronger among men than among women. Of the 51 BMI-associated loci initially identified in European-ancestry populations, we confirmed 8 loci at the genome-wide significance level (P<5.0x10-8) and an additional 14 at P