Researchers have identified new diabetes genes

Metabolic Disease: Study has decrypted new diabetes genes

More and more people in Germany are suffering from diabetes. In addition to lifestyle and environmental factors, various genes are responsible for the pathogenesis. In a recent study, new diabetes genes have now been decrypted.

More and more diabetics in Germany

"Diabetes mellitus is one of the major common diseases in Germany," reads the preface to the "German Health Report Diabetes 2018". According to the German Diabetes Association (DDG), about 6.7 million people in Germany currently suffer from the so-called "diabetes". While unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and obesity are considered clear risk factors for type 2 diabetes, type 1 diabetes is caused by misdirected immune system responses. But certain genes are responsible for the disease. In a study led by a team of Helmholtz Zentrum München and the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), new diabetes genes were decoded. The researchers published their findings in the journal "Nature Communications".

In both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, apart from lifestyle and environmental factors, many different genes are responsible for the pathogenesis. Researchers have now decrypted new diabetes genes. (Image: Robert Kneschke / fotolia.com)

Different genes are responsible for the disease

In both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, apart from lifestyle and environmental factors, many different genes are also responsible for the pathogenesis, according to a report by Helmholtz Zentrum München.

They provide the blueprints of the individual proteins that have a function in the sugar metabolism.
Many genes that play an important role in the development of diseases such as diabetes are still unknown.

Only by deciphering the causes and patterns of origin is it possible to understand the diseases and intervene therapeutically and preventively.

For example, newly identified diabetes genes could be used as biomarkers for individual risk prediction or disease diagnosis.

Metabolic functions examined

On this way, Prof. Dr. med. Martin Hrabě de Angelis and his team from the German Mouse Clinic (GMC) at the Institute for Experimental Genetics (IEG) of the Helmholtz Zentrum München have now come a step further.

As part of the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium (IMPC), they investigated metabolic functions of mouse models, each of which lacked a precisely selected gene.

Using this method, the researchers tried to find out if the missing gene is involved in important metabolic processes.

"Our analysis of this phenotyping data has identified a total of 974 genes whose loss has effects on sugar and fat metabolism," said Hrabě de Angelis, who led the study.

"For more than a third of genes, no metabolic link was previously known. It is also exciting that different genes can be affected depending on gender. "

Certain genes play a role in diabetes

In addition, the researchers report to first author Dr. med. Jan Rozman, the functions of 51 of the metabolic genes found so far were completely unknown.

In addition, comparison with human genome data has already shown that 23 genes appear to play a role in human diabetes.

One of these genes is C4orf22, which appears to be involved in the action of insulin in participants in the diabetes study "Tübingen Family Study (TÜF)". That still has to be shown for the 51 new genes.

"They are new candidate genes, and the new results may be helpful in studying the cause of disturbed sugar metabolism and diabetes," explains Rozman.

Interestingly, bioinformatician and co-author Dr. Thomas Werner, these genes were also similar in their structure: many had common regulatory elements.

The scientists therefore assume that these genes are a network.

In the future, they want to further investigate the findings on these new regulatory structures and to explore to what extent opportunities for the prediction of gene functions of unknown genes but also new therapeutic approaches from the new knowledge arise. (Ad)