Background: Large-scale genotyping efforts performed on Japanese subjects with type 2 diabetes have implicated polymorphisms 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 consisted of 295 cases with advanced diabetic nephropathy and 174 controls who have remained normoalbuminuric despite >or=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 disease association in type 2 diabetic Japanese. Power calculations indicated that with an alpha of 0.05, our study has >90% power to detect disease associations of the magnitude 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 including gender, diabetes duration, blood pressure and glycaemic control. No significant disease associations were likewise found for SLC12A3 haplotypes. Allele, genotype and haplotype 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 unlikely to explain the risk for advanced diabetic nephropathy among type 2 diabetic Caucasians.