Genetic diabetes in Lithuania

• Project promoter: Lithuanian University of Health Sciences
• Project partner: University of Geneva
• Implementation period: 01.11.2012 – 30.04.2016;
• Budget: 2.307.987 LTL

Short project description

The aim of the Project: The incidence of diabetes is increasing, which makes this disease a major global health burden (360 million worldwide). Diabetes often manifests in childhood and early diagnosis is essential for treatments that aim at preventing long-term complications. Various forms of diabetes exist, such as type 1 and type 2, which have complex etiologies involving multiple genes. Additional forms of diabetes have been described that are caused by altered function of a single gene. Monogenic diabetes (MD) is typically associated with point mutations or epigenetic alterations of gene expression. Several forms of MD were initially classified as “maturity onset diabetes of the young” (MODY) and have led to a list of implicated genes. All MDs have in common that they eventually cause a defect of pancreas development or turn off the function of the beta cell machinery. A definite diagnosis of MD can only be achieved by genetic analysis. The identification of the known genes involved as well as screening for novel genes is therefore of outmost importance for the patient, because it will determine the choice of the treatment and efficient prevention of long-term complications. The goal of this grant would be to offer this analysis to pediatric and young (up to the age of 25 years) diabetic patients in Lithuania. Since this type of analysis will be carried out in a larger number of patients, we will obtain also an estimate of the prevalence of the diabetes causative genes in Lithuania.