life Article The Link between Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and the Polymorphisms of Glutathione-Metabolizing Genes Suggests a New Hypothesis Explaining Disease Initiation and Progression Iuliia Azarova 1,2 , Elena Klyosova 2 and Alexey Polonikov 3,4,* 1 Department of Biological Chemistry, Kursk State Medical University, 3 Karl Marx Street, 305041 Kursk, Russia;
[email protected] 2 Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolomics, Research Institute for Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology, Kursk State Medical University, 18 Yamskaya St., 305041 Kursk, Russia;
[email protected] 3 Laboratory of Statistical Genetics and Bioinformatics, Research Institute for Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology, Kursk State Medical University, 18 Yamskaya St., 305041 Kursk, Russia 4 Department of Biology, Medical Genetics and Ecology, Kursk State Medical University, 3 Karl Marx Street, 305041 Kursk, Russia * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +7-471-258-8147 Abstract: The present study investigated whether type 2 diabetes (T2D) is associated with polymor- phisms of genes encoding glutathione-metabolizing enzymes such as glutathione synthetase (GSS) and gamma-glutamyl transferase 7 (GGT7). A total of 3198 unrelated Russian subjects including 1572 T2D patients and 1626 healthy subjects were enrolled. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the GSS and GGT7 genes were genotyped using the MassArray-4 system. We found that the GSS Citation: Azarova, I.; Klyosova, E.; and GGT7 gene polymorphisms alone and in combinations are associated with T2D risk regardless of Polonikov, A. The Link between Type sex, age, and body mass index, as well as correlated with plasma glutathione, hydrogen peroxide, 2 Diabetes Mellitus and the and fasting blood glucose levels. Polymorphisms of GSS (rs13041792) and GGT7 (rs6119534 and Polymorphisms of Glutathione- Metabolizing Genes Suggests a New rs11546155) genes were associated with the tissue-specific expression of genes involved in unfolded Hypothesis Explaining Disease protein response and the regulation of proteostasis.