leptin receptor and ghrelin genes polymorphisms in relation to the metabolism of lipids

The aim of this work was to analyse genetic polymorphisms in genes encoding leptin receptor (LEPR) and ghrelin (GHR) as genetic markers of metabolic disorders in human nutrition. Genomic DNA was obtained from in total 84 human blood samples. Effect of analysed genetic markers was evaluated for three biochemical parameters: total cholesterol, HDL and LDL cholesterol. The PCR-RFLP method was used for identification of SNPs in LEPR (Gln223Arg) and GHR (171T/C) genes. In analysed population prevalence of heterozygous LEPRAG (47.62%) and GHRCT (40.48%) genotypes was observed. Frequency of LEPRA and LEPRB alleles were 0.55 and 0.45, respectively. Similar the GHRC allele had only slight predominance than GHRT allele (0.54/0.46). In population was found higher level of observed heterozygosity across loci (0.44). For both SNPs was found high effective allele number (1.98) which was also transferred to the median level of polymorphic information content (0.37). Association analysis of LEPR and GHR genotypes effect on selected biochemical parameters was performed using GLM procedure. Significant association was found only for levels of LDL cholesterol (P<0.01). Our study shows that both genes are involved in nutritional status and therefore can be considered as candidate genes of lipids metabolism disorders and obesity.