Genetic variants that affect length/height in infancy/early childhood in Vietnamese-Korean families

To identify genetic factors that influence height in infancy/early childhood, a family-based genome-wide association study was conducted using 269 888 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 165 families composed of a Korean father, a Vietnamese mother and Vietnamese-Korean offspring in the International Marriage-based Immigrant Cohort in Korea. In a single-SNP-based analysis, the six SNPs in or near genes MAF, MAGI2, BMP4 and PTPN7 showed consistent suggestive associations at all height standard deviation scores using Korean, World Health Organization and Vietnamese growth references. Analyzing the haplotypes for the genes, haplotype blocks were found to be significantly associated with height. Similar to the results of a contiguous haplotype analysis using tag SNPs as above, noncontiguous haplotypes of variable length also showed a significant association near the suspected loci. Our result suggests that height during infancy/early childhood may be regulated by genetic variations that differ from those of adults.