A largescale genetic study, with multi-ethnic participants, has identified more regions of the genome linked to type 2 diabetes-related traits. The research identifies more genomic regions than if the research had been conducted in Europeans alone. A genome-wide association meta-analysis by an international collaboration: more than 400 global academics, including our Institute of Biomedicine, now published in Nature Genetics.

Ethnic diversity in research identifies more genomic regions linked to diabetes-related traits By including multi-ethnic participants, a largescale genetic study has identified more regions of the genome linked to type 2 diabetes-related traits than if the research had been conducted in Europeans alone. The international MAGIC collaboration, made up of more than 400 global academics, conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis led by the University of Exeter. Now published in Nature Genetics, their findings demonstrate that expanding research into different ancestries yields more and better results, as well as ultimately benefitting global patient care. Up to now, nearly 87 per cent of genomic research of this type has been conducted in Europeans. This means that the way these findings are implemented may not optimally benefit people from non-European ancestries. The team analysed data across a wide range of cohorts, encompassing more than 280,000 people without diabetes. Researchers looked at glycaemic traits, which are used to diagnose diabetes and monitor sugar and insulin levels in the blood. The researchers incorporated 30 percent of the overall cohort with individuals of East Asian, Hispanic, African-American, South Asian and sub-Saharan African origin. By doing so, they discovered 24 more loci – or regions of the genome –linked to glycaemic traits than if they had conducted the research in Europeans alone.

The study is entitled ‘The Trans-Ancestral Genomic Architecture of Glycemic Traits’, and is published in Nature Genetics.

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