RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access A comprehensive analysis of adiponectin QTLs using SNP association, SNP cis-effects on peripheral blood gene expression and gene expression correlation identified novel metabolic syndrome (MetS) genes with potential role in carcinogenesis and systemic inflammation Yi Zhang 1,2* , Jack W Kent Jr 3 , Michael Olivier 4 , Omar Ali 5 , Diana Cerjak 1,2 , Ulrich Broeckel 2,5 , Reham M Abdou 1,2 , Thomas D Dyer 3 , Anthony Comuzzie 3 , Joanne E Curran 3 , Melanie A Carless 3 , David L Rainwater 3 , Harald H H Göring 3 , John Blangero 3 and Ahmed H Kissebah 1,2 Abstract Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is an aberration associated with increased risk for cancer and inflammation. Adiponectin, an adipocyte-produced abundant protein hormone, has countering effect on the diabetogenic and atherogenic components of MetS. Plasma levels of adiponectin are negatively correlated with onset of cancer and cancer patient mortality. We previously performed microsatellite linkage analyses using adiponectin as a surrogate marker and revealed two QTLs on chr5 (5p14) and chr14 (14q13). Methods: Using individuals from 85 extended families that contributed to the linkage and who were measured for 42 clinical and biologic MetS phenotypes, we tested QTL-based SNP associations, peripheral white blood cell (PWBC) gene expression, and the effects of cis-acting SNPs on gene expression to discover genomic elements that could affect the pathophysiology and complications of MetS. (Continued on next page) * Correspondence: yzhang@mcw.edu 1 TOPS Obesity and Metabolic Research Center, Department of Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA 2 Human and Molecular Genetics Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © 2013 Zhang et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Zhang et al. BMC Medical Genomics 2013, 6:14 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1755-8794/6/14