Meta-Analysis of Diverse Populations Reveals How Genes Affect People With Type 2 Diabetes

An ongoing global study of diverse populations by an international research team has shed essential new light on how genes are contributing to type 2 diabetes, a EurekAlert! report specified.

Findings of the study led by scientists which include a genetic epidemiologist from the University of Massachusetts were published recently.

According to assistant professor of biostatistics and epidemiology Cassandra Spracklen, from the UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences, their findings matter because they are moving toward the use of genetic stores to weigh up the risk of diabetes in an individual.

This meta-analysis by the Diabetes Meta-ANalysis of Trans-Ethnic association studies or DIAMANTE was led by statistical genetics professor Andrew Morris at The University of Manchester, and Oxford professors Anubha Mahajan and Mark McCarthy.

Global Prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes

Morris explained that the "global prevalence of type 2 diabetes," a life-changing medical condition, has quadrupled over the last three decades, affecting roughly 392 million people in 2015.

Essentially, the study is a major step toward the leading goal of determining novel genes, as well as understanding the biology of the illness, which has the possibility of helping researchers develop new therapeutics

It is also an essential milestone in the development of "genetic risk scores" to determine individuals who are more prone to develop type 2 diabetes, regardless of the background of their population.

The meta-analysis compared the DNA of nearly 181,000 individuals with type 2 diabetes against 1.16 million people who did not have the said type of diabetes.

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms

Searching through the entire human genome for genetic marker sets known as single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs, genome-wide association studies are looking for genetic differences between people with, and those without the disease.

The method enables scientists to zero in on parts of the genome involved in disease risk, which is helping pinpoint the genes that are causing the disease.

Nevertheless, the largest genome-wide association studies of type 2 diabetes have historically involved the DNA of people of European descent with limited progress in understanding the illness in other population groups.

A similar Medical Xpress report specified, to deal with this bias, researchers from the DIAMANTE Consortium assembled the most diverse collection of genetic information on type 2 diabetes in the world, with nearly 50 percent of individuals from East Asian, South Asian, Hispanic, and African populations groups.

Until at present, more than 80 percent of genomic studies of this type have been carried out in white European-ancestry populations, although scientists know that scores developed solely in people of one ancestry do not work well in those of different ancestry, explained Spracklen, who helped with the analysis and coordination of the data sharing from the East Asian ancestry populations.

Genes Leading to Type 2 Diabetes

The new paper published in the Nature Genetics journal builds off the previous research of Spracklen identifying genetic links with type 2 diabetes in the East Asian-ancestry population and identifying genetic links with diabetes-related traits or fasting glucose, fasting insulin, and HbA1c in the multi-ancestry population.

McCarthy said since their study has involved people from many different parts of the world, they now have a much more complete image of the ways in which patterns of genetic risk for type 2 diabetes differ across populations.

Mahajan added they have currently identified 117 genes that are possible to lead to type 2 diabetes, 40 of which have never been reported in the past. That is the reason this constitutes a major step ahead in deciphering the biology of this condition.

Related information about type 2 diabetes is shown on Animated Diabetes Patient's YouTube video below:

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