GLP1R variant is associated with response to exenatide in overweight Chinese Type 2 diabetes patients

Exenatide is a glucagon-like peptide 1receptor agonist, having both glycemic and weight loss benefits. Given that previous pharmacogenetic studies reported inconsistent evidence of association between variants in the drug target gene GLP1R and response to exenatide, we set out to examine two common coding variants Chinese population. Materials & methods: Here, we recruited 285 overweight Type 2 diabetes patients from China and investigated the association between two common missense variants and response to exenatide, using multivariate linear model with adjustment for baseline and other covariates. Results: The variant allele T of rs10305420 was associated with a 1.27 kg (p = 0.02) less weight loss and a 0.4% (p = 0.002) lower HbA1c reduction after 6 month of exenatide treatment.

The consistent large clinical impact of rs10305420 on glycemic response and weight response to exenatide makes the variant a strong candidate biomarker for precision medicine, particularly among overweight patients with Type 2 diabetes.