resistin gene variation is associated with systemic inflammation but not plasma adipokine levels metabolic syndrome or coronary atherosclerosis in nondiabetic caucasians objective resistin causes insulin resistance and diabetes in mice whereas in humans it is linked to inflammation and atherosclerosis few human genetic studies of resistin in inflammation and atherosclerosis have been performed we hypothesized that the 420cg putative gainoffunction resistin variant would be associated with inflammatory markers and atherosclerosis but not with metabolic syndrome or adipokines in humansdesign and methods we examined the association of three resistin polymorphisms 852ag 420cg and 157ct and related haplotypes with plasma resistin cytokines creactive protein crp adipokines plasma lipoproteins metabolic syndrome and coronary artery calcification cac in nondiabetic caucasians n 851results resistin levels were higher dosedependently with the 420g allele cc 59 27 ngml gc 65 40 ngml and gg 72 48 ngml trend p 004 after age and gender adjustment fold higher for gc gg vs cc 107 100115 p g single nucleotide polymorphism snp was associated with higher soluble tumour necrosis factorreceptor 2 soltnfr2 levels in fully adjusted models 106 95 ci 101111 p 001 the estimated resistin haplotype ggt was associated with soltnfr2 p 004 and the agt haplotype was related to crp p 004 in the fully adjusted models resistin snps and haplotypes were not associated with body mass index bmi fasting glucose insulin resistance metabolic syndrome adipokines or cac scoresconclusions despite modest associations with plasma resistin and inflammatory biomarkers resistin 5 variants were not associated with metabolic parameters or coronary calcification this suggests that resistin is an inflammatory cytokine in humans but has little influence on adiposity metabolic syndrome or atherosclerosis