Objective Diabetic nephropathy (DN) and diabetic
retinopathy (DR) comprise major microvascular
complications of diabetes that occur with a high
concordance rate in patients and are considered to
potentially share pathogeneses. In this case-control
study, we sought to investigate whether DR-related single
nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) exert pleiotropic effects
on renal function outcomes among patients with diabetes.
Research design and methods A total of 33 DR-related
SNPs were identified by replicating published SNPs and
via a genome-wide association study. Furthermore, we
assessed the cumulative effects by creating a weighted
genetic risk score and evaluated the discriminatory and
prediction ability of these genetic variants using DN cases
according to estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR)
status along with a cohort with early renal functional
decline (ERFD).
Results Multivariate logistic regression models revealed
that the DR-related SNPs afforded no individual or
cumulative genetic effect on the nephropathy risk, eGFR
status or ERFD outcome among patients with type two
diabetes in Taiwan.
Conclusion Our findings indicate that larger studies would
be necessary to clearly ascertain the effects of individual
genetic variants and further investigation is also required
to identify other genetic pathways underlying DN.