Genetics of Obesity, Diabetes, and Heart Disease in African Diaspora Populations

This research protocol is designed to study the genetic basis of the clustering of several metabolic disorders including Type 2 diabetes (T2D), hypertension, cardiovascular diseases (CVD), obesity, and other related conditions in populations of the African Diaspora. This project takes advantage of the well-established infrastructure and success of Dr. Anne Sumner's NIDDK clinical protocols. The project will aim to enroll subjects from her cohorts which include whites, African Americans and Africans living in the United States with the goal of performing quantitative trait analysis using a candidate gene approach to understand the genetic basis of serum lipid levels, blood pressure, fasting glucose, and other metabolic parameters. For aim 2, we propose to perform whole exome sequencing in a subset of cases (n=48, 96 chromosomes) to identify both rare and common variants for multiple metabolic parameters. Variants identified by the exome sequencing effort and by a current sequencing project of six candidate lipid genes will be genotyped in the entire cohort. Overall, these studies will further efforts to understand if black-white differences as well as differences within black populations exist in the genetic basis of T2D, CVD, and obesity. Given past activities, it is also anticipated that this resource will form the basis of multiple collaborations between Dr. Rotimi's lab, several NIH intramural researchers, and non-NIH scientists.