TY - JOUR

T1 - Identification of novel high-impact recessively inherited type 2 diabetes risk variants in the Greenlandic population

AU - Grarup, Niels

AU - Moltke, Ida

AU - Andersen, Mette K.

AU - Bjerregaard, Peter

AU - Larsen, Christina V.L.

AU - Dahl-Petersen, Inger K.

AU - Jørsboe, Emil

AU - Tiwari, Hemant K.

AU - Hopkins, Scarlett E.

AU - Wiener, Howard W.

AU - Boyer, Bert B.

AU - Linneberg, Allan

AU - Pedersen, Oluf

AU - Jørgensen, Marit E.

AU - Albrechtsen, Anders

AU - Hansen, Torben

PY - 2018/9/1

Y1 - 2018/9/1

N2 - Aims/hypothesis: In a recent study using a standard additive genetic model, we identified a TBC1D4 loss-of-function variant with a large recessive impact on risk of type 2 diabetes in Greenlanders. The aim of the current study was to identify additional genetic variation underlying type 2 diabetes using a recessive genetic model, thereby increasing the power to detect variants with recessive effects. Methods: We investigated three cohorts of Greenlanders (B99, n = 1401; IHIT, n = 3115; and BBH, n = 547), which were genotyped using Illumina MetaboChip. Of the 4674 genotyped individuals passing quality control, 4648 had phenotype data available, and type 2 diabetes association analyses were performed for 317 individuals with type 2 diabetes and 2631 participants with normal glucose tolerance. Statistical association analyses were performed using a linear mixed model. Results: Using a recessive genetic model, we identified two novel loci associated with type 2 diabetes in Greenlanders, namely rs870992 in ITGA1 on chromosome 5 (OR 2.79, p = 1.8 × 10−8), and rs16993330 upstream of LARGE1 on chromosome 22 (OR 3.52, p = 1.3 × 10−7). The LARGE1 variant did not reach the conventional threshold for genome-wide significance (p < 5 × 10−8) but did withstand a study-wide Bonferroni-corrected significance threshold. Both variants were common in Greenlanders, with minor allele frequencies of 23% and 16%, respectively, and were estimated to have large recessive effects on risk of type 2 diabetes in Greenlanders, compared with additively inherited variants previously observed in European populations. Conclusions/interpretation: We demonstrate the value of using a recessive genetic model in a historically small and isolated population to identify genetic risk variants. Our findings give new insights into the genetic architecture of type 2 diabetes, and further support the existence of high-effect genetic risk factors of potential clinical relevance, particularly in isolated populations. Data availability: The Greenlandic MetaboChip-genotype data are available at European Genome-Phenome Archive (EGA; https://ega-archive.org/) under the accession EGAS00001002641.

AB - Aims/hypothesis: In a recent study using a standard additive genetic model, we identified a TBC1D4 loss-of-function variant with a large recessive impact on risk of type 2 diabetes in Greenlanders. The aim of the current study was to identify additional genetic variation underlying type 2 diabetes using a recessive genetic model, thereby increasing the power to detect variants with recessive effects. Methods: We investigated three cohorts of Greenlanders (B99, n = 1401; IHIT, n = 3115; and BBH, n = 547), which were genotyped using Illumina MetaboChip. Of the 4674 genotyped individuals passing quality control, 4648 had phenotype data available, and type 2 diabetes association analyses were performed for 317 individuals with type 2 diabetes and 2631 participants with normal glucose tolerance. Statistical association analyses were performed using a linear mixed model. Results: Using a recessive genetic model, we identified two novel loci associated with type 2 diabetes in Greenlanders, namely rs870992 in ITGA1 on chromosome 5 (OR 2.79, p = 1.8 × 10−8), and rs16993330 upstream of LARGE1 on chromosome 22 (OR 3.52, p = 1.3 × 10−7). The LARGE1 variant did not reach the conventional threshold for genome-wide significance (p < 5 × 10−8) but did withstand a study-wide Bonferroni-corrected significance threshold. Both variants were common in Greenlanders, with minor allele frequencies of 23% and 16%, respectively, and were estimated to have large recessive effects on risk of type 2 diabetes in Greenlanders, compared with additively inherited variants previously observed in European populations. Conclusions/interpretation: We demonstrate the value of using a recessive genetic model in a historically small and isolated population to identify genetic risk variants. Our findings give new insights into the genetic architecture of type 2 diabetes, and further support the existence of high-effect genetic risk factors of potential clinical relevance, particularly in isolated populations. Data availability: The Greenlandic MetaboChip-genotype data are available at European Genome-Phenome Archive (EGA; https://ega-archive.org/) under the accession EGAS00001002641.

KW - Genetic association

KW - Genome-wide association study

KW - Greenlanders

KW - Inuit

KW - ITGA1

KW - LARGE1

KW - Recessive genetic model

KW - Type 2 diabetes

U2 - 10.1007/s00125-018-4659-2

DO - 10.1007/s00125-018-4659-2

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 29926116

AN - SCOPUS:85048749142

VL - 61

SP - 2005

EP - 2015

JO - Diabetologia

JF - Diabetologia

SN - 0012-186X

IS - 9

ER -