Compugen Discovered Genetic Biomarker, CGEN-40001

Compugen has reported the discovery and experimental confirmation of a genetic biomarker, CGEN-40001 for predisposition to type 2 diabetes.

The company said that the new biomarker was discovered using Compugen’s GeneVa platform, which consists of an in silico database of approximately 350,000 predicted genetic variations in the human genome, with each predicted variation consisting of multiple consecutive nucleotides.

Reportedly, from the approximately 350,000 multiple nucleotide genetic variations predicted by the GeneVa platform, a very small set of variations was selected as being potentially related to type 2 diabetes in Caucasians.

Additionally, the very small set, consisting of only 135 variations, was then tested in a genotyping experiment. In this study, CGEN-40001, a novel 15bp insertion in PFKP has demonstrated the predicted correlation with type 2 diabetes in Caucasians. This correlation was then validated in a second study based on an independent set of samples.

According to the two studies performed by Compugen, approximately 15% of the Caucasian population has at least one copy of this insertion. Furthermore, the studies showed that the presence of this insertion increases the risk of type 2 diabetes by 50-80%.