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Epidemiology

A genome-wide association study in Japanese identified one variant associated with a preference for a Japanese dietary pattern

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 75, pages 937–945 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/Objectives

Individual eating habits may be influenced by genetic factors, in addition to environmental factors. Previous studies suggested that adherence to Japanese food patterns was associated with a decreased risk of all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in a Japanese population to find genetic variations that affect adherence to a Japanese food pattern.

Subjects/Methods

We analyzed GWAS data using 14,079 participants from the Japan Multi-Institutional Collaborative Cohort study. We made a Japanese food score based on six food groups. Association of the imputed variants with the Japanese food score was performed by linear regression analysis with adjustments for age, sex, total energy intake, alcohol intake (g/day), and principal components 1–10 omitting variants in the major histocompatibility region.

Results

We found one SNP in the 14q11.2 locus that was significantly associated with the Japanese food score with P values <5 × 10−8. Functional annotation revealed that the expression levels of two genes (BCL2L2, SLC22A17) were significantly inversely associated with this SNP. These genes are known to be related to olfaction and obesity.

Conclusion

We found a new SNP that was associated with the Japanese food score in a Japanese population. This SNP is inversely associated with genes link to olfaction and obesity.

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Fig. 1: A quantile-quantile plot (black) of genome-wide association studies.
Fig. 2: Genome-wide association signals.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the staff at the Laboratory for Genotyping Development, Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, RIKEN, the staff of the BioBank Japan project, and the members of J-MICC Research Group. We thank Drs. Nobuyuki Hamajima and Hideo Tanaka, the past principal investigators of the J-MICC, for their continuous support for our study. The full list of consortium (J-MICC Research Group) members is given in the Supplementary Information.

Funding

This study was supported by a Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research for Priority Areas of Cancer (No. 17015018) and Innovative Areas (No. 221S0001), and by JSPS KAKENHI Grants (No. 16H06277) from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. This study was also supported in part by funding for the BioBank Japan Project from the Japan Agency for Medical Research and development from April 2015, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology from April 2003 to March 2015.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Epidemiologic Research in Asia, Shiga University of Medical Science, Otsu, Japan

    Harumitsu Suzuki & Katsuyuki Miura

  2. Department of Hygiene, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama, Japan

    Harumitsu Suzuki

  3. Yamashina Racto Clinic and Medical Examination Center, Kyoto, Japan

    Yasuyuki Nakamura

  4. Department of Public Health, Shiga University of Medical Science, Otsu, Japan

    Yasuyuki Nakamura, Naoyuki Takashima, Katsuyuki Miura & Yoshikuni Kita

  5. Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention, Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, Nagoya, Japan

    Keitaro Matsuo & Isao Oze

  6. Department of Cancer Epidemiology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan

    Keitaro Matsuo

  7. Department of Nutrition, Faculty of Wellness, Shigakkan University, Obu, Japan

    Nahomi Imaeda

  8. Department of Public Health, Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Nagoya, Japan

    Nahomi Imaeda, Chiho Goto, Sadao Suzuki & Miki Watanabe

  9. Department of Health and Nutrition, School of Health and Human Life, Nagoya Bunri University, Inazawa, Japan

    Chiho Goto

  10. Department of Integrative Genomics, Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

    Akira Narita

  11. Division of Biomedical Information Analysis, Institute for Biomedical Sciences, Iwate Medical University, Shiwa-gun, Iwate, Japan

    Atsushi Shimizu

  12. Department of Public Health, Kindai University Faculty of Medicine, Osaka-Sayama, Japan

    Naoyuki Takashima

  13. Division of Bioethics and Healthcare Law, the National Cancer Center, Tokyo, Japan

    Kenji Matsui

  14. Public Health Informatics Unit, Department of Integrated Health Sciences, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan

    Masahiro Nakatochi

  15. Department of Preventive Medicine, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan

    Asahi Hishida, Takashi Tamura, Yuka Kadomatsu, Rieko Okada, Kenji Takeuchi & Kenji Wakai

  16. Department of Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Saga University, Saga, Japan

    Yuichiro Nishida

  17. Department Pharmacy, Saga University Hospital, Saga, Japan

    Chisato Shimanoe

  18. School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Kagoshima University, Kagoshima, Japan

    Daisaku Nishimoto

  19. Department of International Island and Community Medicine, Kagoshima University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Kagoshima, Japan

    Toshiro Takezaki

  20. Division of Cancer Information and Control, Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, Nagoya, Japan

    Hidemi Ito

  21. Department of Descriptive Cancer Epidemiology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan

    Hidemi Ito

  22. Department of General Internal Medicine, Kyushu University Hospital, Fukuoka, Japan

    Hiroaki Ikezaki & Masayuki Murata

  23. Department of Epidemiology for Community Health and Medicine, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan

    Daisuke Matsui & Etsuko Ozaki

  24. Cancer Prevention Center, Chiba Cancer Center Research Institute, Chiba, Japan

    Haruo Mikami & Yohko Nakamura

  25. Department of Preventive Medicine, Tokushima University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Tokushima, Japan

    Kokichi Arisawa & Hirokazu Uemura

  26. Department of Health and Welfare System, College of Nursing Art and Science, University of Hyogo, Akashi, Japan

    Hirokazu Uemura

  27. Laboratory of Public Health, School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, University of Shizuoka, Shizuoka, Japan

    Kiyonori Kuriki

  28. Laboratory for Genotyping Development, RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, Kanagawa, Japan

    Yukihide Momozawa & Michiaki Kubo

  29. Faculty of Nursing Science, Tsuruga Nursing University, Tsuruga, Japan

    Yoshikuni Kita

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  1. Harumitsu Suzuki
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Contributions

YN, YoK, and KW: designed the research; HS, YN, NI, CG, NT, KenM, KMi, AH, TT, YuK, RR, YNi, CS, DN, ToT, IO, HI, HiK, MM, DM, EO, HM, YoN, SS, MW, KA, HU, KK, YM, MK, and KT: conducted the research; HS, YN, KeiM, AN, AS, and MN: analyzed data and performed statistical analyses; HS, YN, and KW: wrote the manuscript and had primary responsibility for final content. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yasuyuki Nakamura.

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Suzuki, H., Nakamura, Y., Matsuo, K. et al. A genome-wide association study in Japanese identified one variant associated with a preference for a Japanese dietary pattern. Eur J Clin Nutr 75, 937–945 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-020-00823-z

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