Familial aggregation of obesity, candidate genes and quantitative trait loci

This brief review covers the findings reported in 1996 and in the first 2 months of 1997 on the genetic epidemiology and the molecular markers of human obesity. Although relatively little new evidence has been published on the heritability and other genetic epidemiology characteristics of obesity and fat topography, more has been reported on candidate genes, positional candidate genes and quantitative trait loci. Two recent genome-wide scans have revealed that several molecular markers on different chromosomes were linked to obesity-related phenotypes. Little support for a role for specific candidate genes can be found at this time. A large number of rodent quantitative trait loci have been uncovered so far but they have not yet been systematically tested in human populations.