Title

Polycystic ovary syndrome is linked with the fat mass obesity (FTO) gene variants rs17817449 and rs1421085 in western Saudi Arabia

Authors

Sherin Bakhashab^1,2,*, Asma A Batarfi¹, Najlaa Filimban^2,3, Osama S Bajouh^2,4, Ashraf Dallol^5,6 & Mohammed H. Alqahtani^5,6

Affiliation

¹Biochemistry Department, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80218, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia; ²Centre of Innovation in Personalized Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80216, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia; ³King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Clinical Genomics, Department of Genetics, P.O. Box 3354, Riyadh 11211, Saudi Arabia; ⁴Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80205, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia; ⁵Department of Medical Laboratory Technology, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80216, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia; ⁶Center of Excellence in Genomic Medicine Research, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80216, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia; Corresponding author^*

Email

Dr Sherin Bakhashab - Tel +966 12 6400000; Fax +966 12 6952076; Email sbakhashab@kau.edu.sa; Sherin Bakhashab

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received October 12, 2021; Revised October 18, 2021; Accepted October 18, 2021, Published November 30, 2021

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is characterised by infertility, obesity, insulin resistance and clinical and/or biochemical signs of hyperandrogenism. Obesity is known to be correlated with PCOS causing ovulatory dysfunction and hormone imbalances. Moreover, fat mass and the obesity gene (FTO) were linked with obesity and PCOS. Therefore, it is of interest to determine the genotype and allele frequency for three FTO variants – rs17817449 (G/T), rs1421085 (C/T) and rs8050136 (A/C) –in western Saudi population. 95 PCOS patients and 94 controls were recruited for this study. The genetic variants were assayed using real-time polymerase chain reaction using TaqMan genotyping assays. The chi-squared test was applied to investigate the difference between single nucleotide polymorphisms on PCOS and control subjects, and binary logistic regression was used to determine the association of FTO variants with PCOS symptoms. Variants rs17817449 and rs1421085 were significantly linked with PCOS susceptibility in the study population. Rs17817449 and rs8050136
were significantly associated with hair loss in the PCOS group. Furthermore, rs1421085 and rs8050136 were associated with a high body mass index (BMI>30 kg/m2). Risk alleles in our population associated with hair loss and elevated BMI in women with PCOS were homozygous C for rs8050136. This data will help in defining the genetic predisposition of PCOS among women in western Saudi Arabia.

Keywords

BMI, Polycystic ovary syndrome, FTO, Single nucleotide polymorphism

Citation

Bakhashab et al. Bioinformation 17(11): 904-910 (2021)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.