An Expanded Genome-Wide Association Study of Fructosamine Levels Identifies RCN3 as a Replicating Locus and Implicates FCGRT as the Effector Transcript.

Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, U.K. Department of Public Health and Primary Care, The National Institute for Health Research Blood and Transplant Research Unit in Donor Health and Genomics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K. NHS Blood and Transplant, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, U.K. Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, U.K. British Heart Foundation Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K. British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K. Health Data Research UK Cambridge, Wellcome Genome Campus and University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K. Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX. Department of Haematology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K. National Institute for Health Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals, Cambridge, U.K. Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. Exeter Centre of Excellence for Diabetes Research, University of Exeter Medical School, Exeter, U.K.

Diabetes. 2022;(2):359-364

Abstract

Fructosamine is a measure of short-term glycemic control, which has been suggested as a useful complement to glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) for the diagnosis and monitoring of diabetes. To date, a single genome-wide association study (GWAS) including 8,951 U.S. White and 2,712 U.S. Black individuals without a diabetes diagnosis has been published. Results in Whites and Blacks yielded different association loci, near RCN3 and CNTN5, respectively. In this study, we performed a GWAS on 20,731 European-ancestry blood donors and meta-analyzed our results with previous data from U.S. White participants from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study (Nmeta = 29,685). We identified a novel association near GCK (rs3757840, βmeta = 0.0062; minor allele frequency [MAF] = 0.49; Pmeta = 3.66 × 10-8) and confirmed the association near RCN3 (rs113886122, βmeta = 0.0134; MAF = 0.17; Pmeta = 5.71 × 10-18). Colocalization analysis with whole-blood expression quantitative trait loci data suggested FCGRT as the effector transcript at the RCN3 locus. We further showed that fructosamine has low heritability (h2 = 7.7%), has no significant genetic correlation with HbA1c and other glycemic traits in individuals without a diabetes diagnosis (P > 0.05), but has evidence of shared genetic etiology with some anthropometric traits (Bonferroni-corrected P < 0.0012). Our results broaden knowledge of the genetic architecture of fructosamine and prioritize FCGRT for downstream functional studies at the established RCN3 locus.

Methodological quality

Publication Type : Meta-Analysis

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