Butte NF, Voruganti VS, Cole SA, Haack K, Comuzzie AG, Muzny DM, Wheeler DA, Chang K, Hawes A, Gibbs RA. Resequencing of IRS2 reveals rare variants for obesity but not fasting glucose homeostasis in Hispanic children. Physiol Genomics 43: 1029-1037, 2011. First published July 19, 2011 doi:10.1152/physiolgenomics.00019.2011Our objective was to resequence insulin receptor substrate 2 (IRS2) to identify variants associated with obesity-and diabetes-related traits in Hispanic children. Exonic and intronic segments, 5= and 3= flanking regions of IRS2 (ϳ14.5 kb), were bidirectionally sequenced for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) discovery in 934 Hispanic children using 3730XL DNA Sequencers. Additionally, 15 SNPs derived from Illumina HumanOmni1-Quad BeadChips were analyzed. Measured genotype analysis tested associations between SNPs and obesity and diabetes-related traits. Bayesian quantitative trait nucleotide analysis was used to statistically infer the most likely functional polymorphisms. A total of 140 SNPs were identified with minor allele frequencies (MAF) ranging from 0.001 to 0.47. Forty-two of the 70 coding SNPs result in nonsynonymous amino acid substitutions relative to the consensus sequence; 28 SNPs were detected in the promoter, 12 in introns, 28 in the 3=-UTR, and 2 in the 5=-UTR. Two insertion/deletions (indels) were detected. Ten independent rare SNPs (MAF ϭ 0.001-0.009) were associated with obesity-related traits (P ϭ 0.01-0.00002). SNP 10510452_139 in the promoter region was shown to have a high posterior probability (P ϭ 0.77-0.86) of influencing BMI, fat mass, and waist circumference in Hispanic children. SNP 10510452_139 contributed between 2 and 4% of the population variance in body weight and composition. None of the SNPs or indels were associated with diabetes-related traits or accounted for a previously identified quantitative trait locus on chromosome 13 for fasting serum glucose. Rare but not common IRS2 variants may play a role in the regulation of body weight but not an essential role in fasting glucose homeostasis in Hispanic children. DNA resequencing; diabetes; body mass index; single nucleotide polymorphisms; indels; insulin receptor substrate 2 INSULIN RECEPTOR SUBSTRATE 2 (IRS2) is a compelling candidate gene for obesity, insulin resistance, and Type 2 diabetes given its role in insulin signal transduction and the manifestation of obesity, insulin resistance and -cell failure in Irs2Ϫ/Ϫ mice (30), and yet human studies of common IRS2 variants have not demonstrated consistent effects (2)(3)(4)34). IRS2 is a cytoplasmic signaling protein that mediates effects of insulin, insulinlike growth factor-1, and cytokines by acting as a relay protein between diverse receptor tyrosine kinases and downstream effectors (35,36) and thereby accounting for the diverse actions of insulin (18). Structurally, IRS2 has many modified residues (phosphotyrosines, phosphoserines, and phosphothreonines) and a CpG island in the promoter region, which suggests high regulatory potential. Highly express...