Clues to finding further causes for monogenic diabetes
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - 15:30
in Biology & Nature
In most cases of diabetes, various genes and environmental factors are involved. Not in monogenic diabetes, where the causes are mutations in just a single gene. Between 25% and 45% of family members or patients with monogenic diabetes do not present alterations in any of the genes that have been put forward to date as possible causes, and so new candidate genes have had to be identified. A biochemist in Spain has discovered that the 8p12-p11 chromosome region could host a gene responsible for this rare disease.