miR-146a rs2910164 (G/C) variant may predict morbid obesity risk in adults

Obesity is a common public health problem associated with serious, life-threatening complications. MicroRNAs (miRs) have modulating roles in the immune and inflammatory systems. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the relationship between <i>miR-146a</i> and morbid obesity <b>(</b>MO) in a Turkish population. In this study, a total of 258 subjects (110 patients with MO and 148 controls) were genotyped by the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method to analyze <i>miR-146a</i> rs2910164. Then, we examined the patients as males and females separately. The results of the analyses were evaluated for statistical significance. There was a significant difference in genotype and allele frequencies of <i>miR-146a</i> rs2910164 between patients with MO and control individuals. <i>miR-146a</i> rs2910164 CC genotype and C allele were shown to increase in the MO patients' group compared to the control group (<i>p</i> = 0.000, <i>p</i> = 0.000, respectively). Also, the C allele was higher in both female and male patients compared to controls (<i>p</i> = 0.000, <i>p</i> = 0.000, respectively). High differences were also observed when the patients and the controls were compared according to CC versus GG + GC and GG versus GC + CC (<i>p</i> = 0.000, <i>p</i> = 0.000, respectively). A significant difference was found between the female/male patients and the female/male controls in terms of GG + GC versus CC (<i>p</i> = 0.000, <i>p</i> = 0.000, respectively). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the relationship between this variant and MO in Turkey. Our results showed that <i>miR-146a</i> rs2910164 is a valuable biomarker that can be used to distinguish between patients with MO and the healthy population. The findings can be extended by increasing the sample sizes with diverse ethnicities.