The "GG" genotype of rs26802 variant in the ghrelin gene is a potential protective factor against nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

BACKGROUND

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is an emerging global chronic liver disease worldwide. Considering the powerful association between NAFLD, insulin resistance (IR) and obesity, as well as the key role of ghrelin in these metabolic disorders, we hypothesized that some single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the ghrelin (GHRL) and ghrelin receptor (GHSR) genes might be associated with NAFLD.

METHODS

We conducted a case-control retrospective study of 150 cases with biopsy-proven NAFLD and 155 controls. The diagnosis of NAFLD was established before the start of the genotyping process. All the 305 subjects were genotyped for GHRL SNP rs26802 or -501T>G and GHSR SNP rs572169 or Arg159Arg using the PCR-RFLP method.

RESULTS

The GHRL rs26802 "GG" genotype compared with the "TT" genotype and "TT+TG" genotype appears to be a marker of decreased NAFLD susceptibility even after adjustment for confounding factors (P = 0.006; OR = 0.14, 95% CI = 0.03-0.56 and P = 0.003; OR = 0.16, 95% CI = 0.05-0.53, respectively). However, we observed no significant difference in genotype or allele frequencies between the cases and controls for GHSR SNP rs572169.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings proposed, for the first time, that the GHRL rs26802 "GG" genotype has a protective effect against NAFLD. Nonetheless, this observation warrants further investigations in other populations.