MITOCHONDRIAL GENE-TRANSFER RIBONUCLEIC-ACID (TRNA)(LEU(UUR))-3243 AND TRNA(LYS)-8344 MUTATIONS AND DIABETES-MELLITUS IN KOREA

The high prevalence of diabetic patients with a mutation in the mitoch ondrial gene (the 3243 and 8344 bp mutations) has been identified in J apan. To determine the prevalence of diabetic patients with those muta tions in Korea, we randomly screened selected 503 clinical diabetic pa tients regardless of their diabetes types. We found only 1 patient wit h the mitochondrial DNA mutation at position 3243 (percent mutation, 3 2%), and the mitochondrial DNA mutation at position 8344 was not found in any of the patients. The affected subject was a 22-yr-old man with a history of myoclonic epilepsy and mild sensorineural hearing loss, a 1-yr duration of diabetes mellitus, and a low level C peptide respon se to oral glucose. Because of the low frequency of these mutations in the Korean diabetic population, we concluded that these particular mu tations of mitochondrial DNA may not be a common contributor to diabet es mellitus in Korea.