An international team of scientists working on the largest research to date, studying DNA and type 2 diabetes, has discovered 12 new gene links that offer important clues as to the mechanism of the disease.

A consortium of researchers from across Europe, the United States and Canada reports that the results will not only improve understanding of what is underlying type 2 diabetes, but suggest possible targets for new drugs.

"The signals that we identified provide important clues to the biological basis of type 2 diabetes. Further work will have to turn the resulting genetic data into the best ways to treat and prevent this disease, "said Mark McCarthy of the Center for Human Genetics at Oxford University, who led the study published in the online issue of Nature Genetics.

The identification of 12 new genes brings in 38 common genetic areas known for their connection with type 2 diabetes. The international team reports that the genes found tend to be involved in the work of pancreatic cells that produce insulin, and in controlling the action of insulin in the body.

The authors said that each of the gene variants had only a very small impact on the risk of diabetes, and even in combination, their ability to predict the future risk of diabetes was small.

One important finding of the results was that several of the genes seem to be important for controlling the number of pancreatic beta cells a person has. The result will help answer a long-standing riddle about the role of beta cells in type 2 diabetes; Find "points to the importance of developing treatment methods that are able to maintain or restore a depleted number of beta cells," said McCarthy.

The team used gene sequencing technology to compare the DNA of more than 8,000 people with type 2 diabetes in almost 40,000 people without this disease, in almost 2.5 million genome sites.

Another interesting finding was that the diabetes susceptibility genes also contain variants that increase the risk of other unrelated diseases, including skin cancer and prostate cancer, heart disease and high cholesterol.

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