Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a complication of diabetes mellitus, that affects the kidneys and can severely worsen the quality of life. Many studies have shown that inflammation is one of the mechanisms involved in the development of DN. SIRT1 is a protein, that participates in the regulation of metabolism, DNA repair, stress and inflammatory response. The group of researchers from the University of Ljubljana, University Medical Centre Maribor, General Hospital Slovenj Gradec, and General Hospital Murska Sobota chose to investigate the connection between a SIRT1 genetic variant, called polymorphism rs7069102, and DN in patients with type 2 diabetes.
The authors performed the study on 724 Slovene patients with type 2 diabetes. They divided the patients in two groups, patients with DN (301 patients) and patients without DN (423 patients). They took blood samples from the patients and performed genetic analysis of the SIRT1 gene and found as association between the investigated variant and DN.
The results of their study showed that patients with the rs7069102 genetic variant are more likely to develop DN. However, the results of their study are only applicable to Caucasians since their patients were all Caucasian. Further research is needed to check our results with results acquired from other populations.
The results of this study show that rs7069102 could be a viable genetic marker for DN in patients with diabetes. Future studies should investigate whether the rs7069102 SIRT1 variant is associated with other complications related to diabetes and the possible clinical application of these results.
Check out the video summary of this study: Emerging genetic biomarker for diabetic nephropathy – YouTube
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Editor: Edna Skopljak, MD
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