Variants associated with type 2 diabetes, glycemic traits

Genetic variants newly associated with type 2 diabetes and glycemic traits are reported in two studies this week in Nature Genetics.

Mark McCarthy and colleagues report a large-scale association analysis including 34,840 individuals with type 2 diabetes and 114,981 controls. They identify 10 genomic regions newly associated with susceptibility to type 2 diabetes, adding to the 56 previously reported loci. Their analysis suggests pathways including those associated with cell cycle regulation, adipocytokine protein signaling, and CREBBP-related transcription are involved in diabetes pathogenesis.

Ines Barroso and colleagues report a large-scale association analyses for glycemic traits in up to 133,010 individuals of European ancestry without diabetes. They identify 41 new associations to glycemic traits, which include fasting glucose concentration, fasting insulin concentration, and glucose concentration two hours after an oral glucose challenge. This brings to 53 the number of genomic regions associated with glycemic traits, and the authors show that 33 of these are also associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes.