Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Functional Analysis Of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Associated With Type 2 Diabetes, Serdjan Rolovic, Zhongming Zhao, Phd, Junfei Zhao, Phd

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Type 2 diabetes (T2D), a metabolic disorder characterized by insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency, is a life-long, common, complex disease of major public health importance. To date, there have been 86 published studies that have reported 639 associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and T2D in the GWAS Catalog database, and others studies in literature. However, the majority (~93%) of the SNPs emerging from these studies are located within noncoding sequence, complicating their functional evaluation. Recently, several lines of evidence have suggested the involvement of a proportion of such variants in transcriptional regulatory mechanisms, including modulation of promoter and …

Epigenetic Factors Impacting Type 2 Diabetes In American Indians, Alejandra Salazar Gonzalez, Shelley Cole, Ph.D.

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

American Indians have been found to be at higher risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D) than any other ethnic or racial groups in the United States, with an estimated prevalence rate of 33%. Given that T2D prevalence rates amongst the American Indian population are so high, studying the complex factors that contribute to T2D is crucial. Of particular importance to this study is identifying heritable effects involved in development of T2D. Epigenetic effects, heritable changes to DNA that affect gene expression such as DNA methylation (DNAm), have been shown to be associated with T2D phenotypes.

Studies in other subpopulations have …