New scientific resource will help uncover the genetic underpinnings of typediabetes

Date:
October 12, 2021
Source:
Massachusetts General Hospital
Summary:
Investigators have developed a resource for analyzing how genetic
variants in cells that drive type 2 diabetes may contribute to
the disease.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
Many variants in the human genome have been linked to type 2 diabetes,
but because most do not lie within genes that code for proteins,
it's unclear how they might cause disease. Now an international team,
including investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), has
developed a resource to help uncover the impact of these genetic variants.


==========================================================================
The work, which is described in Cell Reports, relies on the knolwedge
that abnormalities in groups of pancreatic cells called islets, which
produce and release hormones that regulate blood sugar levels, drive
the development of type 2 diabetes. Unfortunately, however, it's very
difficult to obtain samples of human islets. To overcome this challenge, scientists from Spain, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Finland, the UK, and the
US banded together to obtain more than 500 human islet samples from
patients with and without type 2 diabetes and to extract genomic and
gene expression data from these samples. With these data, the researchers created what they named TIGER (for Translational human pancreatic Islet Genotype tissue-Expression Resource).

The research required collecting and examining an enormous amount of information, which was made possible through the use of supercomputing resources and new statistical methods.

Analyses of TIGER revealed that certain genetic variants in islets from patients with type 2 diabetes control the expression of particular
genes. So far, 32 novel genes were identified that may contribute to
type 2 diabetes risk.

"This resource will be very useful to identify genes that may be
related with the genetic variants that we have found associated
with type 2 diabetes," says co-senior author Josep M. Mercader, PhD,
a research-scientist at MGH's Diabetes Unit and Center for Genomic
Medicine. "Knowing the gene behind a given genetic association is the
first step for identifying potential drug targets, or to better understand
the physiology of different types of diabetes." TIGER's data are publicly available and accessible to the diabetes research community through the
TIGER web portal.

"We are proud that we are now able to share this wealth of data to the scientific community in an easily accessible way for all researchers
in the type 2 diabetes field, without the need of computational or bioinformatic expertise," says co-lead author Lorena Alonso, of the
Barcelona Supercomputing Center, in Spain, one of the developers of the
TIGER portal.

Co-lead authors include Ignasi Moran, PhD, of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and Anthony Piron, of the Universite' Libre de Bruxelles. Co-senior authors include Miriam Cnop, MD PhD, of the Universite' Libre de
Bruxelles, and David Torrents, PhD, of the Barcelona Supercomputing
Center.

Other co-authors include Marta Guindo-Marti'nez, Si'lvia Bona`s-Guarch,
Goutham Atla, Irene Miguel-Escalada, Romina Royo, Montserrat Puiggro`s,
Xavier Garcia- Hurtado, Mara Suleiman, Lorella Marselli, Jonathan
L.S. Esguerra, Jean-Vale'ry Turatsinze, Jason M. Torres, Vibe Nylander,
Ji Chen, Lena Eliasson, Matthieu Defrance, Ramon Amela, MAGIC, Hindrik
Mulder, Anna L. Gloyn, Leif Groop, Piero Marchetti, Decio L. Eizirik,
and Jorge Ferrer.

This work has been supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research
and innovation program T2Dsystems under grant agreement No 667191.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Massachusetts_General_Hospital. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Lorena Alonso et al. TIGER: The gene expression regulatory variation
landscape of human pancreatic islets. Cell Reports, 2021 DOI:
10.1016/ j.celrep.2021.109807 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211012112216.htm

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