@article {8345,
	title = {A Genome-Wide Association Study in isolated populations reveals new genes associated to common food likings.},
	journal = {Rev Endocr Metab Disord},
	year = {2016},
	month = {2016 Apr 30},
	abstract = {<p>Food preferences are the first factor driving food choice and thus nutrition. They involve numerous different senses such as taste and olfaction as well as various other factors such as personal experiences and hedonistic aspects. Although it is clear that several of these have a genetic basis, up to now studies have focused mostly on the effects of polymorphisms of taste receptor genes. Therefore, we have carried out one of the first large scale (4611 individuals) GWAS on food likings assessed for 20 specific food likings belonging to 4 different categories (vegetables, fatty, dairy and bitter). A two-step meta-analysis using three different isolated populations from Italy for the discovery step and two populations from The Netherlands and Central Asia for replication, revealed 15 independent genome-wide significant loci (p < 5 {\texttimes} 10(-8)) for 12 different foods. None of the identified genes coded for either taste or olfactory receptors suggesting that genetics impacts in determining food likings in a much broader way than simple differences in taste perception. These results represent a further step in uncovering the genes that underlie liking of common foods that in the end will greatly help understanding the genetics of human nutrition in general.</p>},
	issn = {1573-2606},
	doi = {10.1007/s11154-016-9354-3},
	author = {Pirastu, Nicola and Kooyman, Maarten and Traglia, Michela and Robino, Antonietta and Willems, Sara M and Pistis, Giorgio and Amin, Najaf and Sala, Cinzia and Karssen, Lennart C and van Duijn, Cornelia and Toniolo, Daniela and Gasparini, Paolo}
}
@article {7785,
	title = {Genome-wide association analysis on five isolated populations identifies variants of the HLA-DOA gene associated with white wine liking.},
	journal = {Eur J Hum Genet},
	volume = {23},
	year = {2015},
	month = {2015 Dec},
	pages = {1717-22},
	abstract = {<p>Wine is the most popular alcoholic beverage around the world and because of its importance in society has been widely studied. Understanding what drives its flavor has been a quest for decades but much is still unknown and will be determined at least in part by individual taste preferences. Recently studies in the genetics of taste have uncovered the role of different genes in the determination of food preferences giving new insight on its physiology. In this context we have performed a genome-wide association study on red and white wine liking using three isolated populations collected in Italy, and replicated our results on two additional populations coming from the Netherland and Central Asia for a total of 3885 samples. We have found a significant association (P=2.1 {\texttimes} 10(-8)) between white wine liking and rs9276975:C>T a polymorphism in the HLA-DOA gene encoding a non-canonical MHC II molecule, which regulates other MHC II molecules. The same association was also found with red wine liking (P=8.3 {\texttimes} 10(-6)). Sex-separated analysis have also revealed that the effect of HLA-DOA is twice as large in women as compared to men suggesting an interaction between this polymorphism and gender. Our results are one of the first examples of genome-wide association between liking of a commonly consumed food and gene variants. Moreover, our results suggest a role of the MHC system in the determination of food preferences opening new insight in this field in general.</p>},
	issn = {1476-5438},
	doi = {10.1038/ejhg.2015.34},
	author = {Pirastu, Nicola and Kooyman, Maarten and Traglia, Michela and Robino, Antonietta and Willems, Sara M and Pistis, Giorgio and Amin, Najaf and Sala, Cinzia and Karssen, Lennart C and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Toniolo, Daniela and Gasparini, Paolo}
}
