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The common genetic loci that independently influence the risk of type 1 diabetes have largely been determined. Their interactions with age-at-diagnosis of type 1 diabetes, sex, or the major susceptibility [...]

OBJECTIVE--Interactions between genetic and environmental factors lead to immune dysregulation causing type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune disorders. Recently, many common genetic variants have been associated with type 1 diabetes risk, but each has modest individual effects. Familial clustering of type 1 diabetes has not been explained fully and could arise from many factors, including undetected genetic variation and gene interactions. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS--To address this issue, the Type 1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium recruited 3,892 families, including 4,422 affected sib-pairs. After genotyping 6,090 markers, linkage analyses of these families were performed, using a novel method and taking into account factors such as genotype at known susceptibility loci. RESULTS--Evidence for linkage was robust at the HLA and INS loci, with logarithm of odds (LOD) scores of 398.6 and 5.5, respectively. There was suggestive support for five other loci. Stratification by other risk factors (including HLA and age at diagnosis) identified one convincing region on chromosome 6q14 showing linkage in male subjects (corrected LOD = 4.49; replication P = 0.0002), a locus on chromosome 19q in HLA identical siblings (replication P = 0.006), and four other suggestive loci. CONCLUSIONS--This is the largest linkage study reported for any disease. Our data indicate there are no major type 1 diabetes subtypes definable by linkage analyses; susceptibility is caused by actions of HLA and an apparently random selection from a large number of modest-effect loci; and apart from HLA and INS, there is no important susceptibility factor discoverable by linkage methods. Diabetes 60:1030-1040, 2011, Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the insulin-producing β-cells are destroyed. The defective immune mechanisms in type 1 diabetes have not been identified, although clearly both genes [...]

The discovery of the association between HLA in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) on chromosome 6p21 with type 1 diabetes, but not with type 2 diabetes, suggested that these disease [...]

OBJECTIVE--Genes responsible for monogenic forms of diabetes have proven very valuable for understanding key mechanisms involved in β-cell development and function. Genetic study of selected families is a powerful strategy to identify such genes. We studied a consanguineous family with two first cousins affected by neonatal diabetes; their four parents had a common ancestor, suggestive of a fully penetrant recessive mutation. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS--We performed genetic studies of the family, detailed clinical and biochemical investigations of the patients and the four parents, and biochemical and functional studies of the new mutation. RESULTS--We found a novel mutation in the pancreatic and duodenal homeobox 1 gene (PDX1, IPF1) in the two patients, which segregated with diabetes in the homozygous state. The mutation resulted in an E178G substitution in the PDX1 homeodomain. In contrast to other reported PDX1 mutations leading to neonatal diabetes and pancreas agenesis, homozygosity for the E178G mutation was not associated with clinical signs of exocrine pancreas insufficiency. Further, the four heterozygous parents were not diabetic and displayed normal glucose tolerance. Biochemical studies, however, revealed subclinical exocrine pancreas insufficiency in the patients and slightly reduced insulin secretion in the heterozygous parents. The E178G mutation resulted in reduced Pdx1 transactivation despite normal nuclear localization, expression level, and chromatin occupancy. CONCLUSIONS--This study broadens the clinical spectrum of PDX1 mutations and justifies screening of this gene in neonatal diabetic patients even in the absence of exocrine pancreas manifestations., Although most cases of juvenile-onset insulin-dependent diabetes are represented by type 1 diabetes, in a subset of patients diabetes occurs in the neonatal period or very early. A number of [...]

OBJECTIVE--Type 1 diabetes arises from the actions of multiple genetic and environmental risk factors. Considerable success at identifying common genetic variants that contribute to type I diabetes risk has come from genetic association (primarily case-control) studies. However, such studies have limited power to detect genes containing multiple rare variants that contribute significantly to disease risk. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS--The Type 1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium (T1DGC) has assembled a collection of 2,496 multiplex type 1 diabetic families from nine geographical regions containing 2,658 affected sib-pairs (ASPs). We describe the results of a genome-wide scan for linkage to type 1 diabetes in the T1DGC family collection. RESULTS--Significant evidence of linkage to type 1 diabetes was confirmed at the HLA region on chromosome 6p21.3 (logarithm of odds [LOD] = 213.2). There was further evidence of linkage to type 1 diabetes on 6q that could not be accounted for by the major linkage signal at the HLA class II loci on chromosome 6p21. Suggestive evidence of linkage (LOD ≥ 2.2) was observed near CTLA4 on chromosome 2q32.3 (LOD = 3.28) and near INS (LOD = 3.16) on chromosome 11p15.5. Some evidence for linkage was also detected at two regions on chromosome 19 (LOD = 2.84 and 2.54). CONCLUSIONS--Five non-HLA chromosome regions showed some evidence of linkage to type 1 diabetes. A number of previously proposed type 1 diabetes susceptibility loci, based on smaller ASP numbers, showed limited or no evidence of linkage to disease. Low-frequency susceptibility variants or clusters of loci with common alleles could contribute to the linkage signals observed., Type 1 diabetes develops when the insulin-secreting β-cells in the pancreas are depleted by an autoimmune process of unknown origin. Diagnosis occurs when sufficient β-cell mass is lost that blood [...]

OBJECTIVE--The Type 1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium (T1DGC) has assembled and genotyped a large collection of multiplex families for the purpose of mapping genomic regions linked to type 1 diabetes. In [...]

The PTPN22 gene, encoding the lymphoid-specific protein tyrosine phosphatase, a negative regulator in the T-cell activation and development, has been associated with the susceptibility to several autoimmune diseases, including type 1 diabetes. Based on combined case-control and family-based association studies, we replicated the finding of an association of the PTPN22 C1858T (R620W) functional variant with type 1 diabetes, which was independent from the susceptibility status at the insulin gene and at HLA-DR (DR3/4 compared with others). The risk contributed by the 1858T allele was increased in patients with a family history of other autoimmune diseases, further supporting a general role for this variant on autoimmunity. In addition, we found evidence for an association of 1858T allele with the presence of GAD autoantibodies (GADA), which was restricted to patients with long disease duration (> 10 years, P < 0.001). This may help define a subgroup of patients with long-term persistence of GADA. The risk conferred by 1858T allele on GAD positivity was additive, and our meta-analysis also supported an additive rather than dominant effect of this variant on type 1 diabetes, similar to previous reports on rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus., Type 1 diabetes is a multifactorial disease, resulting from autoimmune destruction of insulin-secreting pancreatic β-cells. In addition to the major histocompatibility complex, which is a major genetic risk factor, the [...]

Wolcott-Rallison syndrome (WRS) is a rare autosomal-recessive disorder characterized by the association of permanent neonatal or early-infancy insulin-dependent diabetes, multiple epiphyseal dysplasia and growth retardation, and other variable multisystemic clinical manifestations. Based on genetic studies of two inbred families, we previously identified the gene responsible for this disorder as EIF2AK3, the pancreatic eukaryotic initiation factor 2[alpha] (eIF2[alpha]) kinase. Here, we have studied 12 families with WRS, totalling 18 cases. With the exception of one case, all patients carried EIF2AK3 mutations resulting in truncated or missense versions of the protein. Exclusion of EIF2AK3 mutations in the one patient case was confirmed by both linkage and sequence data. The activities of missense versions of EIF2AK3 were characterized in vivo and in vitro and found to have a complete lack of activity in four mutant proteins and residual kinase activity in one. Remarkably, the onset of diabetes was relatively late (30 months) in the patient expressing the partially defective EIF2AK3 mutant and in the patient with no EIF2AK3 involvement (18 months) compared with other patients (, The identification of susceptibility genes for multifactorial disorders, such as type 1 diabetes, presents many challenges. To date, only two susceptibility loci for type 1 diabetes have been unambiguously identified, [...]

We describe a high-resolution radiation hybrid map of human chromosome 11q22-q23 containing the ataxia-telangiectasia (AT) disease gene loci. The order and intermarker distances of 32 chromosome 11q22-q23 markers were determined by a multipoint maximum likelihood method of analysis of the cosegregation of markers in 100 radiation hybrids. The radiation hybrid map of polymorphic loci was consistent with genetic linkage maps of common markers. Several genes, including αB-crystallin, adrenal ferrodoxin, CBL2, collagenase, dopamine receptor type 2, neural cell adhesion molecule, progesterone receptor, and stromelysins 1 and 2, were placed in relation to previously ordered, genetically mapped polymorphic loci. Five new markers (αB-crystallin, adrenal ferrodoxin, CJ52.114, CJ52.3, and D11S535) were ordered within the current published flanking markers for the AT group A and group C disease loci. A candidate AT group D gene (ATDC) identified by Kapp et al. (1992, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 51: 45-54) was mapped telomeric to THY1, outside the flanking markers identified by multipoint linkage analysis for the major AT locus. Copyright 1993, 1999 Academic Press