Genetics of diabetic nephropathy

Accumulated evidence from family studies as well as the natural history of the development of diabetic nephropathy (DN) indicates a role for genetic determinants in overall susceptibility. However, since DN does not appear to be a monogenic disease, the search for genetic markers has been complicated. The research has included family linkage studies, candidate gene studies and more recently case-control genome-wide association studies. While the accumulated genomic data have not yielded a predictive test to this point, there are a number of promising genetic markers that will provide not only future research directions in search of a diagnostic test, but also new directions in terms of the pathogenesis of this disease.