Numerous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been conducted in recent years in which researchers compare whole genomes of persons with the same disease or condition, searching for differences in the genetic code that may be associated with that disease or condition.

At-risk variants have largely been found in the non-coding regions of the genome.

In the Nature study, senior author Kyle Gaulton, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues integrated GWAS data with epigenomic maps of cell types in peripheral blood and the pancreas.

Researchers conducted the largest-to-date GWAS of type 1 diabetes, analyzing 520,580 genome samples to identify 69 novel association signals. They then mapped 448,142 cis-regulatory elements (non-coding DNA sequences in or near a gene) in pancreas and peripheral blood cell types.

“By combining these two methodologies, we were able to identify cell type-specific functions of disease variants and discover a predictive causal role for pancreatic exocrine cells in type 1 diabetes, which we were able to validate experimentally,” said Gaulton.

Co-author Maike Sander, MD, professor in the departments of Pediatrics and Cellular and Molecular Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine and director of the Pediatric Diabetes Research Center, said the findings represent a major leap in understanding the causes of type 1 diabetes. She described the work as “a landmark study.”

“The implication is that exocrine cell dysfunction might be a major contributor to disease. This study provides a genetic roadmap from which we can determine which exocrine genes may have a role in disease pathogenesis.”

Source: Medindia