We propose to study genetic determinants of atherosclerosis in diabetes on the inflammatory and endothelia dysfunction pathways that mediate the vessels' response to atherogenic factors.
Our aim i s to determine whether variability in 20 genes belonging to these pathways is related to the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) among men and women diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in two large ongoing prospective studies, the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and Health Professionals' Follow-up Study (HPFS). We propose to do so by combining two complementary approaches that are made possible by the recent advances in our knowledge of the human genome and high-throughput genotyping technologies. We will directly target functional variants in the coding regions of the candidate genes, but will also investigate the association between CHD and ancestral haplotypes at each locus.
Our specific aims are: 1. To identify novel variants in 10 candidate genes of the inflammatory, and endothelial dysfunction pathways that have not been systematically screened for polymorphisms by targeted resequencing; 2. To assess the relationship between, functional variants in 20 candidate genes in the inflammatory and endothelial dysfunction pathways and risk of CHD among subjects with diabetes of the NHS and HPFS cohorts; 3. To identify the subset of polymorphisms that best capture the overall genetic variability at each locus (haplotype tagging SNPs or htSNPs) and investigate the association between CHD risk and the haplotypes defined by these htSNPs; 4. To examine individual SNPs as well as haplotypes in relation to biochemical markers of inflammation and endothelial activation such as CRP, ICAM-1, VCAM-1, E-selectin, and TNF-a in diabetic individuals; and 5. To examine gene-environment interactions in relation to CHD risk in diabetic subjects. By 2006, an estimated 820 cases of CHD will have been confirmed among diabetic men and women in the blood cohorts. The large size, prospective design, high follow-up rates, detailed and reliable long-term lifestyle and outcome information, and the availability of blood specimens make these cohorts a valuable and unique resource for studying genetic determinants of accelerated atherosclerosis in diabetic patients. Knowledge of such markers would provide valuable opportunities for prevention and intervention in this high-risk population as well as in the general population.
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