Causative identification of Novel Polygenic Genes Associated with Obesity in Humans

For the past 40 years, humans have been seeing a significant increase in obesity. While a part of this is contributed to environment and monogenic obesity, polygenic obesity, where multiple genes affect the phenotype, is a more unexplored avenue of research. From a genome-wide association study, RUNX2 and TMEM151B have been correlated to an increase in obesity. These findings were then replicated in c. elegans to show that this correlative increase is causative of BMI increase.