Association of adiponectin gene polymorphism with adiponectin levels and risk for insulin resistance syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Adiponectin is an abundant adipose tissue-derived protein with anti-atherogenic, anti-inflammatory and antidiabetic properties. Plasma adiponectin levels are decreased in obesity, type 2 diabetes, and coronary artery disease and low adiponectin levels also predict insulin resistance (IR).

METHODS: Case-control study in which 642 male and female subjects were participated from the North Indian population. Lipid, insulin, leptin and adiponectin level were estimated using standard protocols by commercially available test kits. Single nucleotide polymorphisms +45T>G and +276G>T of the AMP1 (adiponectin) gene was genotyped by polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism method.

RESULTS: Levels of adiponectin, insulin, homeostasis model assessment-IR index (HOMA-IR index), systolic blood pressure and fat mass showed significant differences between male and female subjects. Serum adiponectin level showed highly significant association with both the +45 and the +276 genotypes. The common haplotype triglyceride (TG) showed a significantly lower adiponectin value than other haplotypes (P = 0.0001). A clear trend of decreasing adiponectin levels per copy of the common haplotype was observed. Nonobese insulin sensitive subjects showed a higher adiponectin value (P = 0.0006) than nonobese insulin resistant subjects. The values of blood pressure, adiponectin, insulin, HOMA-IR, total-cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol significantly associated with TG haplotype.

CONCLUSIONS: We observed the very strong association of the adiponectin 45-276 genotypes and haplotypes with adiponectin levels in healthy north Indian population and TG haplotypes also associated with metabolic parameters of the IR syndrome.