Summary
Cytokines may play importmant roles in the pathogenesis of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). We analysed a dinucleotide repeat polymorphism within the first intron of the interferon γ (IFN-γ) gene in Japanese diabetic patients (175 IDDM and 145 non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus) and 267 control subjects. A significant difference was observed in the global allele distribution of the polymorphism between the IDDM and control groups (p=0.039). The difference from the control group was more evident in the patients whose insulin therapy started within 1 year from onset (p=0.006) or in the young-onset (<10 years) patients (p=0.0006). The alleles “3” and “6” were increased in the IDDM patients, and a significant increase in the frequency of the “3/6” genotype was observed in the IDDM patient group (9.1%, RR 2.9, p=0.010), in the patients with initial insulin therapy less than 1 year from onset (10.6%, RR 3.4, p=0.004), or in the young-onset patients (16.7%, RR 5.7, p=0.0003) in comparison to the control subjects (3.4%). There was a tendency towards frequent occurrence of clinical characteristics which reflect young or abrupt onset of diabetes or both, and depletion of insulin secretion capacity in the patients with “3/6” or “6/6” in comparison to the patients with other genotypes. These results suggest that the IFN-γ gene region may contribute to the pathogenesis of IDDM and could be a genetic marker for IDDM.
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Abbreviations
- IDDM:
-
Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus
- HLA:
-
human leucocyte antigen
- IFN-γ :
-
interferon γ
- NIDDM:
-
non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus
- PCR:
-
polymerase chain reaction
- ICA:
-
islet cell antibody
- TNF-β :
-
tumour necrosis factor β
- IL-1β :
-
interleukin-1 β
- INS:
-
insulin gene
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Awata, T., Matsumoto, C., Urakami, T. et al. Association of polymorphism in the interferon γ gene with IDDM. Diabetologia 37, 1159–1162 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00418381
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00418381