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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Genet.

Sec. Genetics of Common and Rare Diseases

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fgene.2025.1603542

This article is part of the Research TopicInsights in Genetics of Common and Rare Diseases 2024View all 25 articles

Validation of a Genome-Wide Polygenic Score for Body Mass Index in South Asians

Provisionally accepted
Ramesh MenonRamesh Menon1Nikhat KhanNikhat Khan2Sandeep CharugullaSandeep Charugulla1Akshi BassiAkshi Bassi1Pooja DangarePooja Dangare1Akshay DedaniyaAkshay Dedaniya2Aakanksha PantAakanksha Pant2Rammurthy AnjanappaRammurthy Anjanappa1Praveena L SamsonPraveena L Samson1Uthra SatagopanUthra Satagopan1Sakthivel MuruganSakthivel Murugan1Amol NaikawadiAmol Naikawadi2Vedam L RamprasadVedam L Ramprasad1Ravi GuptaRavi Gupta1*
  • 1Medgenome Pvt. Ltd, Bengaluru, India
  • 2Indus Health Plus Pvt. Ltd, Pune, India

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Obesity is a complex disorder, manifested by the interaction of inherited and environmental factors and modulated by a person's lifestyle habits. India has witnessed more than two-fold increase in the number of overweight adults in the last 30 years. Polygenic risk score (PRS) quantitatively measures an individual's risk for common diseases. PRS has been studied in obesity in Caucasian population and has not been validated in South Asian (SAS) population. In this study, we benchmarked and validated the existing genome-wide PRS model of obesity with 2.1 million variants in SAS population. We analysed a total of 14,263 individuals from 3 different South Asian cohorts. We compare the risk score with the body mass index (BMI) categories (under-weight, normal weight, over-weight and obese) in all 3 cohorts. High BMI-PRS was associated with increased BMI in all the 3 cohorts. This study also compared validation results from another population specific PRS model for BMI. We conclude that high polygenic risk score is associated with high BMI in South Asians. Our study suggests that PRS score can perhaps be an early predictor of overweight and obesity in the South Asian population.

Keywords: Polygenic risk score, Obesity, South Asian, genetic screening, validation studies

Received: 31 Mar 2025; Accepted: 29 Jul 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Menon, Khan, Charugulla, Bassi, Dangare, Dedaniya, Pant, Anjanappa, Samson, Satagopan, Murugan, Naikawadi, Ramprasad and Gupta. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Ravi Gupta, Medgenome Pvt. Ltd, Bengaluru, India

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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