Although genetic susceptibility indisputably increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, defining that risk has been challenging. These challenges are even greater for African American populations, where genetic diversity is higher, the risk of type 2 diabetes is greater, and the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance may differ from European populations. To address these gaps, we propose to investigate gene expression traits in adipose and muscle from non-diabetic individuals across a spectrum of weight and insulin sensitivity and who have previously had genome-wide association scans. We hypothesize that transcript profiles in adipose and muscle will correlate with insulin sensitivity, that a subset of these transcripts will be controlled by DNA sequence variants as expression quantitative traits, and that these variants will in turn be associated with type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance. To test these hypotheses we propose 4 aims.
Aim 1 will recruit 250 previous participants in a genome wide association scan (GWAS) for African American type 2 diabetes genes, will characterize insulin secretion and sensitivity, and will obtain adipose and muscle samples.
Aim 2 will characterize global transcript profiles in adipose and muscle from each participant, and will test for association of individual transcript levels with insulin sensitivity.
Aim 3 will use these data and previously obtained GWAS on each individual to map expression quantitative traits, especially cis and trans acting variants for transcripts that associate with insulin sensitivity.
Aim 4 will select single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that associate with type 2 diabetes or insulin sensitivity and associate with expression traits. These expression trait-SNP pairs will be validated for expression in adipose and muscle tissues, expression tested in lymphocytes, and SNPs tested for associations with type 2 diabetes and insulin sensitivity in extended populations. The top 10 cis acting associations will be fine mapped to identify the likely functional SNP or SNPs. As a small feasibility study, 50 individuals from years 1 and 2 of Aim 1 will be retested to characterize insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance in years 4 and 5. The proposed studies will thus identify new SNPs that are associated with the intermediate phenotypes of insulin sensitivity and gene expression. The intermediate trait associations in turn will provide biological support for genetic association studies with type 2 diabetes. The proposed studies thus will complement ongoing GWAS studies as an alternative to extremely large sample sizes that cannot be easily achieved in minority populations, and will lead to an improved understanding of pathophysiology and new potential drug targets.

Public Health Relevance

Type 2 diabetes has twice the prevalence in African American populations as in European populations, but the genetic contributors have been elusive. This study will take existing data from associations of DNA variation with type 2 diabetes and will search for genetic variants that alter the levels of genes that are important to insulin action in fat and muscle tissue. The studies are likely to identify novel genetic variants and pathways that contribute to diabetes risk in populations of African ancestry.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DK090111-05
Application #
8824522
Study Section
Kidney, Nutrition, Obesity and Diabetes (KNOD)
Program Officer
Akolkar, Beena
Project Start
2011-04-01
Project End
2017-03-31
Budget Start
2015-04-01
Budget End
2017-03-31
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2015
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Wake Forest University Health Sciences
Department
Internal Medicine/Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
937727907
City
Winston-Salem
State
NC
Country
United States
Zip Code
27157
Langefeld, Carl D; Comeau, Mary E; Sharma, Neeraj K et al. (2018) Transcriptional Regulatory Mechanisms in Adipose and Muscle Tissue Associated with Composite Glucometabolic Phenotypes. Obesity (Silver Spring) 26:559-569
McClain, Donald A; Sharma, Neeraj K; Jain, Shalini et al. (2018) Adipose Tissue Transferrin and Insulin Resistance. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 103:4197-4208
Schugar, Rebecca C; Shih, Diana M; Warrier, Manya et al. (2017) The TMAO-Producing Enzyme Flavin-Containing Monooxygenase 3 Regulates Obesity and the Beiging of White Adipose Tissue. Cell Rep 19:2451-2461
Sajuthi, Satria P; Sharma, Neeraj K; Comeau, Mary E et al. (2017) Genetic regulation of adipose tissue transcript expression is involved in modulating serum triglyceride and HDL-cholesterol. Gene 632:50-58
Errazuriz, Isabel; Dube, Simmi; Slama, Michael et al. (2017) Randomized Controlled Trial of a MUFA or Fiber-Rich Diet on Hepatic Fat in Prediabetes. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 102:1765-1774
Sajuthi, Satria P; Sharma, Neeraj K; Chou, Jeff W et al. (2016) Mapping adipose and muscle tissue expression quantitative trait loci in African Americans to identify genes for type 2 diabetes and obesity. Hum Genet 135:869-80
Sharma, Neeraj K; Sajuthi, Satria P; Chou, Jeff W et al. (2016) Tissue-Specific and Genetic Regulation of Insulin Sensitivity-Associated Transcripts in African Americans. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 101:1455-68
Das, S K; Ma, L; Sharma, N K (2015) Adipose tissue gene expression and metabolic health of obese adults. Int J Obes (Lond) 39:869-73
Das, Swapan Kumar; Sharma, Neeraj Kumar; Zhang, Bin (2015) Integrative network analysis reveals different pathophysiological mechanisms of insulin resistance among Caucasians and African Americans. BMC Med Genomics 8:4
Sharma, Neeraj K; Varma, Vijayalakshmi; Ma, Lijun et al. (2015) Obesity Associated Modulation of miRNA and Co-Regulated Target Transcripts in Human Adipose Tissue of Non-Diabetic Subjects. Microrna 4:194-204

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