Genetics and genomics studies in type 2 diabetes: A brief review of the current scenario in the Arab region

Background Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a polygenic and multi-factorial complex disease, the challenge to find genetic markers that could explain the risk of development of this disease still remains unresolved. The Arab region is one among the populations with a high prevalence of T2D and a large number of studies have been carried out in exploring the genetic factors associated with T2D risk. Aim To summarize the recent developments in the Arab world based on the recent studies that had looked into genetic factors associated with the development of T2D in the Arab populations. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted to identify studies published between 2015 and 2018 reporting genetic factors or polymorphisms associated with the risk of T2D in the Arab world. The online databases PubMed and Web of Science were used to perform the literature search. Conclusion The present study has evaluated 14 studies published during the year 2015–2018. Studies from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and United Arab Emirates had been explored studying the associations of GIPR, ADIPOQ, FTO, (GRCh38.p12), MLXIP, AKNAD1, KCNJ11 CDKAL1, CDKN2A/2B, TCF7L2, ACE, SNAP25, ELMO1, VDR, KCTD8, GABRA4 and PRKD1 genes with T2D development.