Recently, genomic studies have found that ARL15, and some of its common genetic variants are associated with type 2 diabetes and coronary atherosclerosis.
The results indicated that population structure analysis displayed no differences between T2D patients and healthy individuals; 24 loci located were identified for probable association with T2D (p > 1.288 × 10<sup>-7</sup> and p < 1.348 × 10<sup>-4</sup>); the polymorphism AGTR2 rs1914711 in chromosome X was identified by the allele test (OR = 6.824; p = 1.448 × 10<sup>-9</sup>) as a candidate gene for association with T2D; and ARL15rs4311394 was associated as a T2D protector by genotype and the Armitage trend test (OR = 0.318; p = 0.001).
We performed a replication study in a Japanese population to evaluate the association between type 2 diabetes and six susceptibility loci (TMEM154, SSR1, FAF1, POU5F1, ARL15, and MPHOSPH9) originally identified by a transethnic meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in 2014.
This same risk allele at ARL15 was also associated with a higher risk of CHD (odds ratio [OR] = 1.12, P = 8.5x10(-6), n = 22,421) more nominally, an increased risk of T2D (OR = 1.11, P = 3.2x10(-3), n = 10,128), and several metabolic traits.