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© 2024 David Curtis. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Aims

To follow up results from an earlier study using an extended sample of 470,000 exome-sequenced subjects to identify genes associated with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and to characterise the distribution of rare variants in these genes.

Materials and methods

Exome sequence data for 470,000 UK Biobank participants was analysed using a combined phenotype for T2D obtained from diagnostic and prescription data. Gene-wise weighted burden analysis of rare coding variants in the new cohort of 270,000 samples was carried out for the 32 genes previously significant with uncorrected p < 0.001 along with 7 other genes previously implicated in T2D. Follow-up studies of GCK, GIGYF1, HNF1A and HNF4A used the full sample of 470,000 to investigate the effects of different categories of variant.

Results

No novel genes were identified as exome wide significant. Rare loss of function (LOF) variants in GCK exerted a very large effect on T2D risk but more common (though still very rare) nonsynonymous variants classified as probably damaging by PolyPhen on average approximately doubled risk. Rare variants in the other three genes also had large effects on risk.

Conclusions

In spite of the very large sample size, no novel genes are implicated. Coding variants with an identifiable effect are collectively too rare be generally useful for guiding treatment choices for most patients. The finding that some nonsynonymous variants in GCK affect T2D risk is novel but not unexpected and does not have obvious practical implications. This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource.

Details

Title
Analysis of rare coding variants in 470,000 exome-sequenced subjects characterises contributions to risk of type 2 diabetes
Author
Curtis, David  VIAFID ORCID Logo 
First page
e0311827
Section
Research Article
Publication year
2024
Publication date
Dec 2024
Publisher
Public Library of Science
e-ISSN
19326203
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3143786705
Copyright
© 2024 David Curtis. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.