“Genetic Predisposition to Type II Diabetes in the Hispanic Population in Relation to SNP rs2070744 on the eNOS Gene”

Abstract

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is caused by the inability to break down sugar in the blood and ultimately starving the sufferer’s body and causing a cascade of various health issues. Rates of T2D in the U.S stood at 1.5 million newly diagnosed people in 2016 alone, proving the disease is rampant and dangerous. One of the top ethnicities affected is the Hispanic population. A statistic from 2016 revealed that 9.07% of the Hispanic population in the U.S was affected by T2D. With such high rates, the necessity of prevention research is evident. Since there is a broad spectrum of ethnicities that are affected by the disease, research must be done on certain populations to get reliable results. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may be the key to prevention of T2D. SNPs are genetic variations of alleles that have shown correlations to genetic predisposition to T2D in previous research. Using SNPs we aim to find the same correlations. SNP RS2070744 located on the eNOS gene has shown correlation of the T by C change decreasing the likelihood of attaining T2D. Our project’s goal is to add results to solidify the correlation of SNP RS2070744’s role in T2D predisposition. This was done by collecting buccal samples, extracting the DNA, amplification through PCR, gel electrophoresis, digestion, and lastly analysis for correlation. Our results show that the allele T is more prevalent in the Diabetes patients (82%) in relation to the controls (53%). This research has added data to potentially proving the correlation of SNP rs20707044’s role in genetic predisposition to T2D, but further research and data must be collected to make finite conclusions.