Original Article Genetic variation at the SLC12A3 locus is unlikely to explain risk for advanced diabetic nephropathy in Caucasians with type 2 diabetes

Background. Large-scale genotyping efforts performed on Japanese subjectswith type 2 diabetes have implicated poly-morphisms in solute carrier family 12 (sodium/chloride transporters) member 3 (SLC12A3) as being associated with advanced diabetic nephropathy. However, it is not known whether these polymorphisms confer a risk for this complication in type 2 diabetic Caucasians. Methods. A case-control study was conducted that con-sisted of 295 cases with advanced diabetic nephropathy and 174 controls who have remained normoalbuminuric despite≥7 years of diabetes. A total of 11 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) spanning the SLC12A3 locus was analysed including+34372G>A (Arg913Gln) that was the marker previously showing the strongest evidence for dis-ease association in type 2 diabetic Japanese. Power calcu-lations indicated that with an alpha of 0.05, our study has>90 % power to detect disease associations of the magni-tude previously reported for +34372G>A (Arg913Gln). Results. Allele and genotype distributions for all 11 SNPs were found to be comparable between cases and controls, consistent with the absence of disease association. This negative result was reiterated in subgroup analysis after taking into account potentially important covariates includ-ing gender, diabetes duration, blood pressure and glycaemic control. No significant disease associations were likewise found for SLC12A3 haplotypes. Allele, genotype and hap-lotype distributions were similar in cases regardless of whether they were proteinuric or had developed chronic renal failure/end-stage renal disease. Conclusions.Genetic variation at the SLC12A3 locus is un-likely to explain the risk for advanced diabetic nephropathy among type 2 diabetic Caucasians