In the Mexican American dataset, the minor (C) allele of rs17824177 was associated with higher BHLHE40-AS1 expression (NES = 0.395, P = 0.01) (S15 Table). Colocalization modeling with Obesity Class III GWAS and GTEx expression data revealed colocalization between rs36118680 and PLCL2 expression in whole blood (posterior probability = 99%). Here, BHLHE40 is linked to obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency.