Genome-wide association studies in aging-related processes such as diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis and cancer.
Recent technological developments allow to genotype several hundreds of thousands of genetic variants in a single person in one step. This enables genome-wide association studies (GWAS) by genotyping a large number of patients with diseases of interest and controls at reasonable costs. Compared to a hypothesis-driven candidate gene approach the hypothesis-free GWAS can identify new susceptibility genes without making any a priori biological assumptions. They permit to identify genes involved in pathways which until now were unknown to be involved in a certain phenotype. GWAS are therefore a new and very powerful tool to identify genetic contributors to aging-related phenotypes. This paper provides a short overview about design and methods of GWAS and reviews recent advances in the identification of susceptibility genes for type 2 diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis and cancer using GWAS.
Kronenberg
Florian
F
Division of Genetic Epidemiology, Department of Medical Genetics, Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology, Innsbruck Medical University, Schöpfstr 41, A-6020, Innsbruck, Austria. Florian.Kronenberg@i-med.ac.at
D000368:Aged; D050197:Atherosclerosis / Q000235:genetics*; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000235:genetics*; D005819:Genetic Markers; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D015894:Genome, Human; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*
D005819:Genetic Markers