Genome-wide linkage and association analyses for the fasting glucose level in Korean population including monozygotic twins

Type 2 diabetes involves the major chronic diseases with high consistence in monozygotic twins. The fasting glucose level is one of the traits related to type 2 diabetes. We explored a trait of the fasting glucose level for which we wish to determine markers out of more than 500,000 markers being considered in genome-wide study in Korean cohort including identical twins through the combined approaches of linkage analysis with family-based association test. We detected 21 regions with significant evidence of linkage with fasting glucose level in genome-wide linkage analysis. In particular, we identified the regions of chromosome 1q25, 8p23, 9p24 and 20p12, which are known to be consistent regions showing evidence of linkage with type 2 diabetes in different populations. We found several SNPs in these regions which were significantly detected through the combined approaches of genome-wide linkage with family-based association analyses. In conclusion, we found multiple regions which show evidence of linkage and association with fasting glucose level in Korean healthy twin-family cohort.