Our study sheds further light on the role of ADIPOQ SNPs on adiponectin levels — which has been the source of several inconsistent reports [12],[13],[14],[25] — since we have systematically tested all common HapMap CEPH (Centre d'Étude du Polymorphisme Humain) SNPs through genotyping and imputation across the ADIPOQ locus in 14,733 individuals (Figure S2). Among the SNPs previously associated with adiponectin levels at ADIPOQ, the rs1648707 SNP achieved genome-wide significance in our analysis for adiponectin. rs1648707 is in moderate linkage disequilibrium with rs266729 (r2 = 0.74), which has previously been associated with adiponectin levels, but not consistently with T2D [12]. We did not assess rare variants, and were thus unable to test the association of rs17366743 (minor allele frequency = 0.075) with adiponectin levels, which has been previously associated with T2D and with fasting glucose, but not with adiponectin levels [13].
