Additive effect of polymorphisms in the IL-6, LTA, and TNF-{alpha} genes and plasma fatty acid level modulate risk for the metabolic syndrome and its components.

Context: Cytokine polymorphisms and dietary fat composition may influence the risk of the metabolic syndrome (MetS).

Objective: The objective of the study was to determine the relationship between lymphotoxin-alpha (LTA), TNF-alpha, and IL-6 gene polymorphisms with MetS risk and investigate whether plasma fatty acid composition, a biomarker of dietary fat intake, modulated these associations.

Design: Polymorphisms (LTA rs915654, TNF-alpha rs1800629, IL-6 rs1800797), biochemical measurements, and plasma fatty acids were determined in the LIPGENE-SU.

Haplotype frequency estimation error analysis in the presence of missing genotype data.

Background: Increasingly researchers are turning to the use of haplotype analysis as a tool in population studies, the investigation of linkage disequilibrium, and candidate gene analysis. When the phase of the data is unknown, computational methods, in particular those employing the Expectation-Maximisation (EM) algorithm, are frequently used for estimating the phase and frequency of the underlying haplotypes. These methods have proved very successful, predicting the phase-known frequencies from data for which the phase is unknown with a high degree of accuracy.