Abstract
Serum liver enzyme levels are widely used in the clinical diagnosis of liver diseases and the assessment of liver status. They also have epidemiological significance to be prospective risk factors for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease. In the previous study, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in several genes have been reported to be associated with serum liver enzyme levels in American population. We aimed to confirm whether the genetic variation of C16orf47 (chromosome 16 open reading frame 47) gene also influence the serum liver enzyme levels in Korean population. We genotyped variants in or near C16orf47 in a population-based sample including 994 unrelated Korean adult. Here, we performed association analysis to elucidate the possible relations of genetic polymorphisms in C16orf47 gene with serum liver enzyme levels. By examining genotype data of a total of 944 subjects in 5 hospital health promotion center, we discovered the C16orf47 gene polymorphisms are associated with serum liver enzyme levels. The common and highest significant polymorphism was rs7203412 (${\beta}$=3.68, P=3.66E-06) with glutamic oxaloacetic transferase (GOT) and rs7203412 (${\beta}$=6.2, P=7.06E-05) with glutamic pyruvate transaminase (GPT) in all group. Furthermore, the SNP rs7203412 was consistently associated with GOT (${\beta}$=6.41, P=6.78E-08) and GPT (${\beta}$=11.53, P=2.81E-06) in men group. Consequently, we found statistically significant SNP in C16orf47 gene that are associated with serum levels of GOT and GPT. In addition, these results suggest that the individuals with the minor alleles of the SNP in the C16orf47 gene may be more elevated serum liver enzyme levels in the Korean population.