Basic research Expression of candidate genes associated with obesity in peripheral white blood cells of Mexican children Marcela Ulloa-Martínez1, Ana I. Burguete-García2, Selvasankar Murugesan1,3, Carlos Hoyo-Vadillo3, Miguel Cruz-Lopez4, Jaime García-Mena1 1Departamento de Genética y Biología Molecular, Centro de Investigación y de Corresponding author: Estudios Avanzados del IPN, México, México Jaime García-Mena PhD 2Dirección de Infecciones Crónicas y Cáncer, CISEI, Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Departamento de Genética México, México y Biología Molecular 3Departamento de Farmacología, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Centro de Investigación IPN, México, México y de Estudios Avanzados 4Unidad Unidad de Investigación Médica en Bioquímica, Centro Médico Nacional del IPN Siglo XXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, México, México Av IPN #2508 Col Zacatenco Submitted: 3 December 2014 07360 México, México Accepted: 4 February 2015 Phone: +52 55 5747-3800 ext. 5328 Arch Med Sci 2016; 12, 5: 968–976 E-mail:
[email protected] DOI: 10.5114/aoms.2016.58126 Copyright © 2016 Termedia & Banach Abstract Introduction: Obesity is a chronic, complex, and multifactorial disease, char- acterized by excess body fat. Diverse studies of the human genome have led to the identification of susceptibility genes that contribute to obesity. However, relatively few studies have addressed specifically the association between the level of expression of these genes and obesity. Material and methods: We studied 160 healthy and obese unrelated Mexi- can children aged 6 to 14 years. We measured the transcriptional expression of 20 genes associated with obesity, in addition to the biochemical parame- ters, in peripheral white blood cells.