The common variant of rs6214 in insulin like growth factor 1 (IGF1) gene: a potential protective factor for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Abstract

Purpose

Regarding the central role of insulin resistance in NAFLD, we explored whether insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) and insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 3 (IGFBP3) gene variants were associated with NAFLD susceptibility.

Methods

IGF1 (rs6214) and IGFBP3 (rs3110697) gene variants were genotyped in 154 cases with biopsy-proven NAFLD and 156 controls using PCR-RFLP method.

Results

The IGF1 rs6214 “AA + AG” genotype compared with the “GG” genotype appeared to be a marker of decreased NAFLD susceptibility (p = .006; OR = 0.47, 95%CI = 0.28–0.80). Furthermore, the IGF1 rs6214 “A” allele was underrepresented in the cases than controls (p = .024; OR = 0.61, 95%CI = 0.40–0.94). However, we observed no significant difference in genotype or allele frequencies between the cases and controls for IGFBP3 gene.

Conclusions

To our knowledge, these findings suggest, for the first time, that the IGF1 rs6214 “A” allele and “AA + AG” genotype have protective effects for NAFLD susceptibility. Nonetheless, further studies are needed to validate our findings.

Keywords:

• IGF1
• IGFBP3
• insulin
• non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
• polymorphism

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all patients and healthy blood donors for providing blood samples.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Iran National Science Foundation (INSF) [grant number 90005942] and Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases Research Centre, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences [grant number 1424].