THURSDAY, Sept. 22 (HealthDay News) -- The minor T-allele of exonic single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs17353856 in SUV39H2 is associated with retinopathy in patients with type 1 diabetes, and shows a trend toward an association with diabetic nephropathy and cardiovascular disease, according to a study published online Sept. 6 in Diabetes.
Anna Tiitu, from the Biomedicum Helsinki in Finland, and colleagues investigated the genetic polymorphisms of the SETD7, SUV39H1, and SUV39H2 methyltransferases as predictors of risk for micro and macro vascular complications in patients with type 1 diabetes. A total of 2,991 individuals with type 1 diabetes and diabetic retinopathy, diabetic nephropathy, and cardiovascular disease were genotyped with 37 tag SNPs in the Finnish Diabetic Nephropathy Study (FinnDiane) cohort. Of these, seven SNPs were genotyped in additional replication cohorts from the Steno Diabetes Center and the All Ireland/Warren 3/GoKinD U.K. study.
The investigators found that, in a meta-analysis, the minor T-allele of the exonic SNP rs17353856 in the SUV39H2 correlated with diabetic retinopathy (genotypic odds ratio, 0.75). This SNP also revealed a trend toward correlation with diabetic nephropathy and cardiovascular disease in the FinnDiane cohort.
"Our findings propose that a genetic variation in a gene coding for a histone methyltransferase is protective for a diabetic micro vascular complication," the authors write.
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