The role of neuromedin U in adiposity regulation. Haplotype analysis in European children from the IDEFICS Cohort

Neuromedin U (NMU) is a hypothalamic neuropeptide with important roles in several metabolic processes, recently suggested as potential therapeutic target for obesity. We analysed the associations between NMU gene variants and haplotypes and body mass index (BMI) in a large sample of European children. From a large European multi-center study on childhood obesity, 4,528 children (2.0-9.9 years, mean age 6.0±1.8 SD; boys 52.2%) were randomly selected, stratifying by age, sex and country, and genotyped for tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs; rs6827359, T:C; rs12500837, T:C; rs9999653,C:T) of NMU gene, then haplotypes were inferred. Regression models were applied to estimate the associations between SNPs or haplotypes and BMI as well as other anthropometric measures. BMI was associated with all NMU SNPs (p