Replication of recently described type 2 diabetes gene variants in a South Indian population

Recent genomewide association studies have identified several new gene variants associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) mostly in European populations. These need to be replicated in other populations. We studied 926 unrelated T2D and 812 normal glucose-tolerant subjects randomly selected from the Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiology Study in Southern India. A total of 45 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from 15 genes and 13 unannotated loci identified from recent genomewide association T2D studies were genotyped. Only 6 of 45 SNPs studied were replicated in this South Indian population. Three SNPs—rs7756992 (P = .007), rs7754840 (P = .015), and rs6931514 (P = .029)—of the CDKAL1, rs7020996 (P = .003) of the CDKN2A/B gene, rs7923837 (P = .038) of the HHEX gene, and rs12056034 (P = .033) of the BAZ1B gene were associated with T2D in our population. Large-scale studies are needed in our population to validate our findings.