Stable patterns of gene expression regulating carbohydrate metabolism determined by geographic ancestry.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Individuals of African descent in the United States suffer disproportionately from diseases with a metabolic etiology (obesity, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes), and from the pathological consequences of these disorders (hypertension and cardiovascular disease).

Methodology/principal findings

Using a combination of genetic/genomic and bioinformatics approaches, we identified a large number of genes that were both differentially expressed between American subjects self-identified to be of either African or European ancestry and that also contained single nucleotide polymorphisms that distinguish distantly related ancestral populations. Several of these genes control the metabolism of simple carbohydrates and are direct targets for the SREBP1, a metabolic transcrip

SUBMITTER: Schisler JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2790609 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature