Lack of Association of PAX4 Gene With Type 1 Diabetes in the Finnish and Hungarian Populations

Lack of Association of PAX4 Gene With Type 1 Diabetes in the Finnish and Hungarian Populations Robert Hermann 1 2 , Jussi Mantere 1 2 , Kati Lipponen 1 2 , Riitta Veijola 1 3 , Gyula Soltesz 4 , Timo Otonkoski 5 6 , Olli Simell 1 7 , Mikael Knip 1 6 8 and Jorma Ilonen 1 2 1 Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Centre for Prevention of Type 1 Diabetes in Finland, Turku, Finland 2 Department of Virology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland 3 Department of Pediatrics, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland 4 Department of Pediatrics, University of Pecs, Pecs, Hungary 5 Program of Developmental and Reproductive Biology, Biomedicum, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 6 Hospital for Children and Adolescents, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 7 Department of Pediatrics, University of Turku, Turku, Finland 8 Department of Pediatrics, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Robert Hermann, Department of Virology, University of Turku, Kiinamyllynkatu 13, FIN-20520 Turku, Finland. E-mail: robert.hermann{at}utu.fi Abstract We aimed to assess the possible contribution of the PAX4 transcription factor gene to the genetic background of type 1 diabetes. We analyzed four coding polymorphisms of the PAX4 gene in 498 cases with type 1 diabetes and 825 control subjects from Finland and Hungary. All patients were diagnosed under the age of 15 years according to the World Health Organization criteria. All four PAX4 variants (three in exon 9 and one in exon 3) were genotyped using DNA sequencing. In addition, all Finnish subjects were typed for HLA DR-DQ , insulin gene (−23) HphI , and CTLA4 CT60 polymorphisms. The +1,168 C/A coding variant of PAX4 was found to be polymorphic in both populations (P321H, rs712701). No difference was observed in the genotype frequencies between cases and control subjects, nor was any disease association detected when patients were stratified according to age at diagnosis, sex, HLA, insulin gene, or CTLA4 genotypes. Our data indicate that the +1,168 C/A variant of PAX4 gene does not play any essential role in genetic type 1 diabetes susceptibility. The strong coherence between the datasets of the two ethnic groups studied with highly contrasting disease incidence, socioeconomic characteristics, and profoundly diverse environment emphasizes the impact of this finding. SNP, single nucleotide polymorphism Footnotes Accepted June 10, 2005. Received May 2, 2005. DIABETES