Northwestern University dominates complex genetic mechanisms such as type 2 diabetes

xinhua News Agency, Xi'an, January 28 (Xinhua Xu Zuhua) Beijing time on January 28, the early morning of the "Nature" magazine published northwestern University Department of Life Sciences and Medicine functional genomics research team Yan Jian and his collaborators of the latest research results, "systematic analysis of non-coding DNA mutations on transcription factor binding", to reveal the genetic mechanism of complex diseases such as type 2 diabetes provides an important theoretical basis, is a breakthrough in the post-genome era.
the results were announced internationally for the first time, using SNP-SELEX technology to analyze the effects of nearly 100,000 common non-coding site mutations in the human genome on the binding of 270 transcription factor proteins. SNP-SELEX technology provides new ideas and strategies for comprehensive and rapid analysis of molecular processes of metabolic diseases, cancer and other genetic diseases, and the search for targets for diagnosis and treatment.
This paper, based on the existing rich foundation of genetic research on type 2 diabetes, starts with the mutations known to be associated with the disease, reveals the biological function of a large number of mutations at the molecular level by means of high-volume means, and verifies the principle of cell metabolic changes caused by some mutations, which provides an important theoretical basis for the clinical treatment of type 2 diabetes.Similar studies prior to
were targeted at individual or several mutations, and a complete understanding of complex diseases such as type 2 diabetes, which are affected by hundreds or thousands of mutations at the same time, could not be completed in a short period of time, greatly hampering the development of treatments. The study was a major breakthrough in solving the molecular mechanism of nearly 100,000 mutations. Yan Jian, one of the co-authors of the paper and the first author, said."On this basis, we believe that similar research tools can be further extended to the study of other genetic diseases, including bowel cancer, prostate cancer, etc., and will have a recommended and guiding role in explaining the genetic characteristics of such diseases and finding clinically diagnosed molecular markers,"
Said. ”