ArticleCommunications biology2022
The link between liver fat and cardiometabolic diseases is highlighted by genome-wide association study of MRI-derived measures of body composition.
Article in Communications biology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Genetics of MASLD: a diabetes perspective.Diabetologia · 2026Review
- Integrative Analysis Uncover the Effects and Multi-Omics Features of Thigh Muscle Fat Infiltration.Aging cell · 2026Article
- Mapping the genetically predicted associations between lower-extremity muscle traits and spinal diseases.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2026Article
- Article
- Genome-Wide Discovery Reveals Adipose-Specific and Systemic Regulators of Insulin Resistance.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- From Adipose Dysfunction to Multi-Organ Steatosis: Defining the Metabolic Steatotic Axis.Current issues in molecular biology · 2026Review
- Genetically modeled GLP1R and GIPR agonism reduce binge drinking and alcohol-associated phenotypes: a multi-ancestry drug-target Mendelian randomization study.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Identification of novel biomarkers and drug targets for frailty-related skeletal muscle aging: a multi-omics study.QJM : monthly journal of the Association of Physicians · 2025Article
- Grip strength: are some adiposity phenotypes more detrimental than others? A Mendelian randomization study.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2025Observational
- Impact of genetic variants linked to liver fat and liver volume on MRI-mapped body composition.JHEP reports : innovation in hepatology · 2025Article
- Contextualizing molecular and structural aging across human organs.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Variant-to-function approaches for adipose tissue: Insights into cardiometabolic disorders.Cell genomics · 2025Review
- Nutritional alterations, adverse consequences, and comprehensive assessment in spinal cord injury: a review.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Review
- Sex Differences in Fat Distribution and Muscle Fat Infiltration in the Lower Extremity: A Retrospective Diverse-Ethnicity 7T MRI Study in a Research Institute Setting in the USA.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Evidence for a causal link between intra-pancreatic fat deposition and pancreatic cancer: A prospective cohort and Mendelian randomization study.Cell reports. Medicine · 2024Observational
- A single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of primate liver aging uncovers the pro-senescence role of SREBP2 in hepatocytes.Protein & cell · 2024Article
- Is increased myocardial triglyceride content associated with early changes in left ventricular function? AFrontiers in endocrinology · 2023Article
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18 authors.
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Abstract
Obesity and associated morbidities, metabolic associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) included, constitute some of the largest public health threats worldwide. Body composition and related risk factors are known to be heritable and identification of their genetic determinants may aid in the development of better prevention and treatment strategies. Recently, large-scale whole-body MRI data has become available, providing more specific measures of body composition than anthropometrics such as body mass index. Here, we aimed to elucidate the genetic architecture of body composition, by conducting genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of these MRI-derived measures. We ran both univariate and multivariate GWAS on fourteen MRI-derived measurements of adipose and muscle tissue distribution, derived from scans from 33,588 White European UK Biobank participants (mean age of 64.5 years, 51.4% female). Through multivariate analysis, we discovered 100 loci with distributed effects across the body composition measures and 241 significant genes primarily involved in immune system functioning. Liver fat stood out, with a highly discoverable and oligogenic architecture and the strongest genetic associations. Comparison with 21 common cardiometabolic traits revealed both shared and specific genetic influences, with higher mean heritability for the MRI measures (h
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