A genetic link between type 2 diabetes and prostate cancer.
Epidemiological studies suggest that men with type 2 diabetes are less likely than non-diabetic men to develop prostate cancer. The cause of this association is not known. Recent genetic studies have highlighted a potential genetic link between the two diseases. Two studies have identified a version (allele) of a variant in the HNF1B (also known as TCF2) gene that predisposes to type 2 diabetes, and one of them showed that the same allele protects men from prostate cancer. Other, separate, studies have identified different variants in the JAZF1 gene, one associated with type 2 diabetes, another associated with prostate cancer. These findings are unlikely to completely explain the epidemiological association between the two diseases but they provide new insight into a possible direct causal link, rather than one that is confounded or biased in some way.
Frayling
T M
TM
Genetics of Complex Traits, Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Exeter, Magdalen Road, Exeter, UK. Tim.frayling@pms.ac.uk
Colhoun
H
H
Florez
J C
JC
D000483:Alleles; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000235:genetics*; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D051539:Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 1-beta / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*
C496495:HNF1B protein, human; D051539:Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 1-beta