Blood-based analysis of type-2 diabetes mellitus susceptibility genes identifies specific transcript variants with deregulated expression and association with disease risk

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 9; no. 1; p. 1512
• Main Authors: Christodoulou, Maria-Ioanna, Avgeris, Margaritis, Kokkinopoulou, Ioanna, Maratou, Eirini, Mitrou, Panayota, Kontos, Christos K., Pappas, Efthimios, Boutati, Eleni, Scorilas, Andreas, Fragoulis, Emmanuel G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 06-02-2019; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 38/39; 38/77; 45/90; 631/337/2019; 692/4017; 692/699/2743/137/773; Calpain; Cyclin-dependent kinase 5; Deregulation; Diabetes; Diabetes mellitus; Gene expression; Genetic diversity; Genetic variance; Genetics; Genome-wide association studies; Genomes; Health risk assessment; Health risks; Humanities and Social Sciences; Insulin; multidisciplinary; Peripheral blood; Phenotypes; Ribonucleic acid; RNA; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Single-nucleotide polymorphism; Transcription
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-37856-1

Despite significant progress by genome-wide association studies, the ability of genetic variants to conduce to the prediction or prognosis of type-2 diabetes (T2D) is weak. Expression analysis of the corresponding genes may suggest possible links between single-nucleotide polymorphisms and T2D phenotype and/or risk. Herein, we investigated the expression patterns of 24 T2D-susceptibility genes, and their individual transcript variants (tv), in peripheral blood of T2D patients and controls (CTs), applying RNA-seq and real-time qPCR methodologies, and explore possible associations with disease features. Our data revealed the deregulation of certain transcripts in T2D patients. Among them, the down-regulation of
CAPN10
tv3 was confirmed as an independent predictor for T2D. In patients, increased expression of
CDK5
tv2,
CDKN2A
tv3 or
THADA
tv5 correlated positively with serum insulin levels, of
CDK5
tv1 positively with % HbA1c levels, while in controls, elevated levels of
TSPAN8
were associated positively with the presence of T2D family history. Herein, a T2D-specific expression profile of specific transcripts of disease-susceptibility genes is for the first time described in human peripheral blood. Large-scale studies are needed to evaluate the potential of these molecules to serve as disease biomarkers.