Evaluation of common type 2 diabetes risk variants in a South Asian population of Sri Lankan descent.

Most studies seeking common variant associations with type 2 diabetes (T2D) have focused on individuals of European ancestry. These discoveries need to be evaluated in other major ancestral groups, to understand ethnic differences in predisposition, and establish whether these contribute to variation in T2D prevalence and presentation. This study aims to establish whether common variants conferring T2D-risk in Europeans contribute to T2D-susceptibility in the South Asian population of Sri Lanka.Lead single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) at 37 T2D-risk loci attaining genome-wide significance in Europeans were genotyped in 878 T2D cases and 1523 normoglycaemic controls from Sri Lanka. Association testing was performed by logistic regression adjusting for age and sex and by the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test after stratifying according to self-identified ethnolinguistic subgroup. A weighted genetic risk score was generated to examine the combined effect of these SNPs on T2D-risk in the Sri Lankan population.Of the 36 SNPs passing quality control, sixteen showed nominal (p