Type 2 diabetes mellitus results from the interaction of environmental factors with a combination of genetic variants, most of which were hitherto unknown. A systematic search for these variants was recently made possible by the development of high-density arrays that permit the genotyping of hundreds of thousands of polymorphisms. We tested 392,935 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in a French case-control cohort. Markers with the most significant difference in genotype frequencies between cases of type 2 diabetes and controls were fast-tracked for testing in a second cohort. This identified four loci containing variants that confer type 2 diabetes risk, in addition to confirming the known association with the TCF7L2 gene. These loci include a non-synonymous polymorphism in the zinc transporter SLC30A8, which is expressed exclusively in insulin-producing beta-cells, and two linkage disequilibrium blocks that contain genes potentially involved in beta-cell development or function (IDE-KIF11-HHEX and EXT2-ALX4). These associations explain a substantial portion of disease risk and constitute proof of principle for the genome-wide approach to the elucidation of complex genetic traits.

Genome-wide association studies have identified common variants that only partially explain the genetic risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D). Using genome-wide association data from 1,376 French individuals, we identified 16,360 SNPs nominally associated with T2D and studied these SNPs in an independent sample of 4,977 French individuals. We then selected the 28 best hits for replication in 7,698 Danish subjects and identified 4 SNPs showing strong association with T2D, one of which (rs2943641, P = 9.3 x 10(-12), OR = 1.19) was located adjacent to the insulin receptor substrate 1 gene (IRS1). Unlike previously reported T2D risk loci, which predominantly associate with impaired beta cell function, the C allele of rs2943641 was associated with insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia in 14,358 French, Danish and Finnish participants from population-based cohorts; this allele was also associated with reduced basal levels of IRS1 protein and decreased insulin induction of IRS1-associated phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase activity in human skeletal muscle biopsies.