Thus, our results shed further light on the regulatory network in β-cells consisting of miRNAs, UCP2, and insulin and provide novel therapeutic targets for diabetes.
Decreased UCP2 gene expression in mononuclear cells from obese and diabetic patients might contribute to the immunological abnormalities in these metabolic disorders and suggests its role as a candidate gene in future studies of obesity and diabetes.
The mitochondrial protective gene PGC-1α is also closely related to diabetes, and UCP2 is related to anti-mitochondrial oxidative stress, but the mechanism of action of these genes is unclear.
UCP2 -866G>A (rs659366) has been implicated in cardiometabolic disease and represents a novel candidate gene for beta-blocker response, particularly among patients with diabetes.
This review summarizes data supporting the roles of UCP2 and UCP3 in energy dissipation, as well as the genetic variety association with fat metabolism, obesity and diabetes in humans.
A variant in the promoter of the human uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) gene, the G-866A polymorphism, has been associated with future risk of coronary heart disease events, in those devoid of traditional risk factors and in those suffering from diabetes.
We explored the associations of three variants in the uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) gene, one variant in the UCP2-UCP3 intergenic region and five variants in the uncoupling protein 3 (UCP3) gene with obesity and diabetes related traits in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance participating in Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study.
These findings suggest a role of UCP2-UCP3 gene cluster haplotypes in diabetes; in particular, the effects of the high-risk haplotypes were more apparent in overweight Caucasian women.
UCP-2 can possibly modify atherosclerotic processes initiated in vascular cells and agents that increase UCP-2 expression in vascular cells may help prevent the development and progression of atherosclerosis in patients with diabetes or hypertension.
Our data suggest that agents increasing UCP-2 expression in vascular cells may help prevent the development and progression of atherosclerosis in patients with diabetes and hypertension.
We also tested for an effect of the P12A variant of the peroxisomal proliferator-activated receptor-gamma 2 (PPAR gamma 2) gene on diabetes risk given by the UCP2 SNP.
To test this hypothesis we searched for association between the A-->G (-3862) variant in UCP1, the insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism in exon 8 in UCP2, and the C-->T (-55) polymorphism in UCP3 and diabetic nephropathy in 218 diabetic patients with normal urinary albumin excretion rate (AER), 216 with micro- or macroalbuminuria, and in 106 control subjects without a family history of diabetes.