Evaluation of associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms in the FRMD3 and CARS genes and diabetic nephropathy in a Kuwaiti population

Abstract

Diabetic nephropathy is the leading cause of end-stage kidney disease in the world. Many single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been associated with diabetic nephropathy. SNPs at the 4.1 protein ezrin, radixin, moesin domain 3 (FRMD3) and cysteinyl t-RNA synthetase (CARS) genes have a well-established relationship with diabetic nephropathy. However, this association has not been evaluated in a Kuwaiti population. DNA was extracted from blood samples obtained from patients with diabetic nephropathy (N = 38); the genes of interest were amplified, and the SNPs were genotypes. Diabetics without nephropathy (N = 64) were used as controls. The risk (G and C) and non-risk (C and T) allele frequencies of the SNPs at the rs1888747 and rs739401 loci of FRMD3 and CARS, respectively, did not differ significantly between the diabetics with (case) and without (control) nephropathy (P > 0.05). These findings suggest that the molecular mechanisms involved in diabetic nephropathy may be different in a Kuwaiti population, compared to other populations (such as Japanese and Caucasian Europeans). The discrepancies observed in our study could also be attributed to the smaller sample size analyzed in this study. Therefore, further analyses with larger samples are required to identify the susceptibility genes in a Middle-Eastern population.