Endocrine Abstracts

Background and aim: HLA alleles are associated with type 1 diabetes (T1D) and a spectrum of risk can be from increased to neutral or to protective. We aimed to evaluate the association of cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN) with DRB1* gene’s alleles among T1D.

Methods: The case – control pilot study included 70 patients with T1D at the age 18-54 years. 36 patients with CAN were assigned to the case group and 34 patients without CAN – to the control group. The groups were homogeneous according to the duration of diabetes, mean age at diabetes presentation and gender. The diagnosis of CAN was confirmed when 2 or more pathological standartized cardiovascular tests were present. HLA alleles identification was determined for all participants by using the polymerase chain reaction with sequence specific primers.

Results: 70 patients with T1D were included in the study: 26 males and 44 females. Patients mean age was 30.48±11.22 years, mean duration of diabetes - 17.52±6.96 years, mean HbA1c 9.26±1.74%. The frequency distribution of DRB1 gene‘s alleles among case group showed, that the most frequent alleles were: *04 allele - 18 (25.00%), *03 – 12 (16.66%), *01 – 11 (15.27%), *07 – 8 (11.11%), *08 – 6 (8.33%), and among control group - *04 allele – 22 (32.35%), *01 – 14 (20.58%), *03 – 8 (11.76%), *13 – 6 (8.82%). We confirmed the 3.20 (p=0.018) increased relative risk for CAN in T1D with DRB1 gene‘s *08 allele, also *11 (OR 1.67), *07 (OR 1.66) and *03 (OR 1.63) alleles were associated with increased risk. The highest probability was to find heterozygotes of *08/*X (OR 3.20), *03/*04 (OR 3.20), *07/*X (OR 2.07), *03/*X (OR 1.79) genotypes among T1D with diagnosed CAN.

Conclusion: DRB1 gene’s *08 allele and *08/*X, *03/*04, *07/*X, *03/*X genotypes are associated with increased risk for CAN among patient with T1D.