PPARG and FTO Gene Variants and Their Association with Type 2 Diabetes in The Kurdish Population

Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) is considered the most common form of diabetes; it develops when pancreatic cells produce an excess amount
of insulin, which leads to insulin resistance by peripheral cells. T2D is an illness caused by interactions between genetics and
environmental factors. Genetic factors are involved in the evolution of T2D, and several genetic variants increase the risk of developing
T2D. The SNPs rs1801282 in the PPARG gene and rs9939609 in the FTO gene were found to be associated with increasing the risk of
T2D in different populations. We aimed to discover if rs1801282 in the PPARG gene and rs9939609 in the FTO gene are responsible
for increasing the risk of T2D in the Kurdistan population. In the current study, DNA from 200 unrelated samples (100 T2D and 100
non-diabetic control) individuals were genotyped using Allele-specific PCR for both SNPs. The PCR methods were validated by the
Sanger sequencing method.
The association analysis for the rs1801282 variant (adjusted by sex, age, and BMI) showed significant differences between the case and
the control groups; individuals with genotypes (GG and GC) had a higher risk of the disease (p-value = 0.0045, OR = 3.96, 95%CI:
1.31-11.94) than genotype (CC). On the contrary, there were no significant differences (p-value= 0.39) between the case and control
groups for the rs9939609 variant.
Our finding suggested that the variant rs1801282 in the PPARG gene was a suspectable SNP in T2D in the Kurdish population, while
SNP rs9939609 in the FTO gene was not associated with T2D. Further investigations with larger number of samples are required to
validate our findings.