A gene conferring susceptibility to type 2 diabetes in conjunction with obesity is located on chromosome 18p11

Genome-wide nonparametric linkage analysis of 480 sib-pairs affected with t ype 2 diabetes revealed linkage to a previously unreported susceptibility l ocus on chromosome 18p11, This result improved with stringent subphenotypin g using age- and sex-adjusted BMI, ultimately reaching a logarithm of odds of 3.82 (allele sharing 0.6654) at a point between markers D18S976 and D18S 391 when the most obese 20% of the sample was analyzed, Several genes on ch romosome 18 have been suggested as metabolic disease candidates, but none o f these colocalize with our linkage result. We conclude that our results pr ovide support for the presence of a currently uncharacterized gene on chrom osome 18p, certain alleles of which confer increased susceptibility to type 2 diabetes in conjunction with obesity, We additionally observed moderate evidence for linkage to chromosome 1, near marker D1S3462; chromosome 4, ne ar marker D4S2361; chromosome 5, near marker DS51505; and chromosome 17, ne ar marker D17S1301.