GENETICS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN TYPE 2 DIABETES

本子项目是利用由NIH/NCRR资助的中心赠款提供的资源的众多研究子项目之一。子项目和研究者（PI）可能已经从另一个NIH来源获得了主要资金，因此可以在其他CRISP条目中表示。列出的机构是中心的，不一定是研究者的机构。据估计，有280万非裔美国人患有糖尿病，约占所有非裔美国人的13%。平均而言，非裔美国人患糖尿病的可能性是同龄白人美国人的两倍。造成这种差异的原因是什么？如何才能扭转这种流行病？有令人信服的证据表明，基因对糖尿病风险有重要影响。我们的方法是识别患有2型糖尿病的非裔美国家庭，这样我们就可以发现导致疾病易感性的关键遗传因素。最近对250多个非裔美国糖尿病家庭的整个人类基因组进行了扫描，我们发现了一个似乎藏有糖尿病易感基因的区域。现在我们来研究一下6号染色体的这个区域。我们将首先研究可能与糖尿病有关的已知基因，但可能需要深入探索该区域，以定位和识别新的糖尿病基因。为了评估这些基因和该区域对糖尿病风险的影响，我们目前正在从人群中招募额外的非洲裔美国糖尿病患者和非洲裔美国人作为对照。在非裔美国人人群中识别导致糖尿病的基因将是开发预防策略和设计新疗法的第一步。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. It is estimated that 2.8 million African Americans have diabetes, which represents approximately 13% of all African Americans. On average, an African American individual is twice as likely to have diabetes as a Caucasian American of the same age. What are the reasons for this disparity, and how can the epidemic be reversed? There is compelling evidence for a significant genetic contribution to diabetes risk. Our approach has been to identify African American families with type 2 diabetes so that we may uncover the key inherited factors that contribute to disease susceptibility. With a scan of the entire human genome recently completed in over 250 African American families with diabetes, we have found one region that appears to harbor a diabetes-susceptibility gene. We are now in a position to hone in on this region of chromosome 6. We will first investigate known genes that may be involved in diabetes, but will likely need to explore the region in depth to locate and identify a novel diabetogenic gene. To evaluate the influence of these genes and this region on diabetes risk, we are currently recuiting additional African American patients with diabetes and African American individuals from the population to act as controls. The identification of genes contributing to diabetes in the African American population will be the first step toward developing prevention strategies and designing novel therapies.