The association between the presence of fat mass and obesity-associated gene (FTO) and the incidence of obesity in Iraqi persons in Holy Kerbala

Obesity is regarded nowadays as one of the worldwide medical and psychosocial problem so that many researches had been dealt with the underlying causes of resistant obesity and increased body mass index “BMI”. Recent data demonstrate the strong association between the presence of obesity with specific gene called fat mass and obesity associated gene (FTO). Many single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) was detected that are discovered that closely related to the increased incidence of obesity among populations, notably rs9939609 and rs17817449 SNPs. To evaluate the presence of these SNPs as a predisposing factor in obese persons with BMI exceeds 30. A 100 obese persons were selected randomly along with 50 body-fitted people as a control group. Molecular detection of these SNPs was done by RT-PCR followed by statistical analysis. there was significant increase in expression of AA genotype of FTO rs9939609 SNP in obese persons in comparison to non-obese group (0.60 ± 0.04 versus 0.28 ± 0.06 respectively at P> 0.002) and significant increase in expression of GG genotype of FTO rs1781744 SNP in obese persons in comparison to non-obese group 0.59 ± 0.04 versus 0.22 ± 0.05 respectively at P> 0.001)