N-acetyltransferase 2 polymorphism in patients with diabetes mellitus.

The arylamine N-acetyltransferases (NATs) are a unique family of enzymes that catalyse the transfer of an acetyl group from acetyl-CoA to the terminal nitrogen of hydrazine and arylamine drugs and carcinogens. Human arylamine NATs are known to exist as two isoenzymes, NAT1 and NAT2. The objective of this study was to identify whether the genetic polymorphism of NAT2 plays a role in susceptibility to Diabetes Mellitus (DM). Ninety-seven patients with DM and 104 healthy controls were enrolled in the study. NAT25A, NAT26A, NAT27A/B and NAT214A polymorphisms were detected by using real time PCR with LightCycler (Roche Diagnostics GmbH, Mannheim, Germany). According to our data, the NAT25A and NAT26A mutant genotypes and NAT214A heterozygous genotype were associated with an increased risk of development of DM (OR = 47.06; 95%CI: 10.55-209.77 for NAT 25A, OR = 18.48; 95%CI: 3.83-89.11 for NAT26A and OR = 18.22; 95%CI: 6.29-52.76 for NAT214A). However, the NAT27A/B gene polymorphism carried no increased risk for developing DM disease. After grouping according to phenotypes as either slow or fast acetylators, NAT26A slow acetylator was found to be a significant risk factor for DM (OR = 6.09; 95%CI: 1.99-18.6, p = 0.02). The results indicate that NAT2 slow acetylator genotypes may be an important genetic determinant for DM in the Turkish population.