Common variants of the TCF7L2 gene are associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus in a UK-resident South Asian population

Simon D. Rees, Srikanth Bellary, Abigail C. Britten, J. Paul O'Hare, Sudhesh Kumar, Anthony H. Barnett, M. Ann Kelly

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Background - Recent studies have implicated variants of the transcription factor 7-like 2 (TCF7L2) gene in genetic susceptibility to type 2 diabetes mellitus in several different populations. The aim of this study was to determine whether variants of this gene are also risk factors for type 2 diabetes development in a UK-resident South Asian cohort of Punjabi ancestry.
Methods - We genotyped four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of TCF7L2 (rs7901695, rs7903146, rs11196205 and rs12255372) in 831 subjects with diabetes and 437 control subjects.
Results - The minor allele of each variant was significantly associated with type 2 diabetes; the greatest risk of developing the disease was conferred by rs7903146, with an allelic odds ratio (OR) of 1.31 (95% CI: 1.11 – 1.56, p = 1.96 × 10-3). For each variant, disease risk associated with homozygosity for the minor allele was greater than that for heterozygotes, with the exception of rs12255372. To determine the effect on the observed associations of including young control subjects in our data set, we reanalysed the data using subsets of the control group defined by different minimum age thresholds. Increasing the minimum age of our control subjects resulted in a corresponding increase in OR for all variants of the gene (p ≤ 1.04 × 10-7).
Conclusion - Our results support recent findings that TCF7L2 is an important genetic risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes in multiple ethnic groups.
Original languageEnglish
Article number8
Number of pages6
JournalBMC Medical Genetics
Volume9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Feb 2008

Bibliographical note

© 2008 Rees et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Keywords

  • transcription factor 7-like 2 protein
  • alleles
  • chi-square distribution
  • cohort studies
  • type 2 diabetes mellitus
  • TCF transcription factors
  • genetic predisposition to disease
  • genetic variation
  • genotype
  • Great Britain
  • risk factors
  • linkage disequilibrium
  • single nucleotide polymorphism
  • Pakistan
  • odds ratio

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Common variants of the TCF7L2 gene are associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus in a UK-resident South Asian population'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this