Association between type 1 diabetes age-at-onset and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) gene polymorphism

We investigated the intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) gene polymor phism in 90 patients with young-onset type I diabetes, 74 with adult-onset type 1 diabetes, and 171 control subjects, The distribution of C-T genotype s and allele frequencies in exon 6 of the ICAM-1 gene was significantly dif ferent between adult-onset type 1 diabetes patients and controls (chi(2) = 9.76, p = 0.0076), and between patients with adult-onset and young-onset ty pe 1 diabetes (chi(2) = 11.28, p = 0.0036). In contrast, we failed to detec t any association between patients with young-onset type 1 diabetes and con trols. Our data suggest that ICAM-1 exon 6 gene polymorphism affects the ag e-at-onset of type 1 diabetes and that different pathogenetic mechanisms ma y exist between young-onset and adult-onset type 1 diabetes. Human Immunolo gy 61, 507-510 (2000). (C) American Society for Histocompatibility and Immu nogenetics, 2000. Published by Elsevier Science Inc.