As reported in early October by JDRF, Researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have identified a new group of genetic differences that may increase the risk of developing type 1 diabetes.
The team carried out the study by comparing samples from 10,000 people with type 1 diabetes with 17,000 people without type 1. The databases contained details of areas of the genome where there are differences in the DNA code of just one letter. These act as signposts for scientists, alerting them to regions of a gene associated with type 1 diabetes.
Published online in the journal Public Library of Science Genetics, the research described three new places where the genes of people with type 1 were different. A particularly important variation is on the gene called LM07 that is associated with pancreas islet cells.
This latest discovery adds to the 50 genetic regions that have previously been linked to type 1 diabetes by researchers such as the JDRF-funded Professor John Todd at the University of Cambridge.
