CLINICAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
e1468 J Clin Endocrinol Metab, April 2020, 105(4):e1468–e1477 https://academic.oup.com/jcem doi:10.1210/clinem/dgz276
ISSN Print 0021-972X ISSN Online 1945-7197
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Received 13 September 2019. Accepted 13 December 2019.
First Published Online 16 December 2019.
Corrected and Typeset 12 March 2020.
The Melanocortin 4 Receptor p.Ile269Asn Mutation
Is Associated with Childhood and Adult Obesity in
Mexicans
Miguel Vázquez-Moreno,
1,2
Helen Zeng,
2
Daniel Locia-Morales,
1
Jesús Peralta-Romero,
1
Hamza Asif,
2
Arjuna Maharaj,
2
Vivian Tam,
2
María D.S. Romero-Figueroa,
3
Gloria P. Sosa-Bustamante,
4
Socorro Méndez-Martínez,
5
Aurora Mejía-Benítez,
2
Adan Valladares-Salgado,
1
Niels Wacher-Rodarte,
6
National Obesity Network Mexico,
7
Miguel Cruz,
1
and
David Meyre
2,8
1
Unidad de Investigación Médica en Bioquímica, Hospital de Especialidades, Centro Médico Nacional
Siglo XXI del Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Ciudad de México, México;
2
Department of
Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada;
3
Centro de
Investigación en Ciencias de la Salud (CICSA), Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Anáhuac,
Campus Norte, Huixquilucan, México;
4
Hospital de Gíneco-Pediatría, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social
León, Guanajuato, México;
5
Coordinación de Investigación en Salud, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social
Puebla, Puebla, México;
6
Unidad de Investigación en Epidemiología Clínica, Hospital de Especialidades
Bernardo Sepúlveda, Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Ciudad de
México, México;
7
Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social México. Investigators listed in the appendix; and
8
Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
ORCiD number: 0000-0003-4850-7444 (D. Meyre).
Context: Rare partial/complete loss-of-function mutations in the melanocortin-4 receptor
(MC4R) gene are the most common cause of Mendelian obesity in European populations, but
their contribution to obesity in the Mexican population is unclear.
Objective and Design: We investigated whether deleterious mutations in MC4R contribute to
obesity in Mexican children and adults.
Results: We provide evidence that the MC4R p.Ile269Asn (rs79783591) mutation may have
arisen in modern human populations from a founder event in native Mexicans. The MC4R
Isoleucine 269 is perfectly conserved across 184 species, which suggests a critical role for
the amino acid in MC4R activity. Four in silico tools (SIFT, PolyPhen-2, CADD, MutPred2)
predicted a deleterious impact of the p.Ile269Asn substitution on MC4R function. The MC4R
p.Ile269Asn mutation was associated with childhood (N
controls
= 952, N
cases
= 661, odds ratio
(OR) = 3.06, 95% confdence interval (95%CI) [1.94–4.85]) and adult obesity (N
controls
= 1445,
N
cases
= 2,487, OR = 2.58, 95%CI [1.52–4.39]). The frequency of the MC4R p.Ile269Asn mutation
ranged from 0.52 to 0.59% and 1.53 to 1.59% in children and adults with normal weight and
obesity, respectively. The MC4R p.Ile269Asn mutation co-segregated perfectly with obesity in
5 multigenerational Mexican pedigrees. While adults with obesity carrying the p.Ile269Asn
mutation had higher BMI values than noncarriers, this trend was not observed in children. The
MC4R p.Ile269Asn mutation accounted for a population attributable risk of 1.28% and 0.68%
for childhood and adult obesity, respectively, in the Mexican population.
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