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Genome wide association studies for diabetes: perspective on results and challenges
Author(s) -
Torres JM,
Cox NJ,
Philipson LH
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
pediatric diabetes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.678
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1399-5448
pISSN - 1399-543X
DOI - 10.1111/pedi.12015
Subject(s) - medicine , genome wide association study , perspective (graphical) , genetic association , diabetes mellitus , computational biology , association (psychology) , medline , bioinformatics , genetics , endocrinology , single nucleotide polymorphism , gene , biology , genotype , artificial intelligence , computer science , philosophy , biochemistry , epistemology
Recent results of genome wide association study (GWAS) for diabetes genes, while reaching impressive technical milestones and implicating new findings for research, have been uniformly disappointing in terms of immediate clinical utility. The relative risk associated with any of the newly reported genetic loci, or even considering all of them together, is far less than simply that which can be obtained by taking a history and a physical exam. For type 2 diabetes (T2D), GWAS have implicated novel pathways, supported previously known associations, and highlighted the importance of the beta cell and insulin secretion. Monogenic forms of diabetes, on the other hand, continue to yield interesting insights into genes controlling human beta cell function but most cases of monogenic diabetes are simply not diagnosed. Here, we briefly review recent results related to type 1, type 2 and maturity onset diabetes of youth (MODY) diabetes and suggest that future studies emphasizing quantitative traits are likely to yield even more insights.