Diabetes mellitus polygenic risk scores: heterogeneity and clinical translation

Diabetes mellitus encompasses several disorders, each with differing clinical presentation, prognoses and pathophysiology. Distinct polygenic architectures underlie type 1 diabetes mellitus and type 2 diabetes mellitus, and govern numerous pathophysiological pathways that converge on dysglycaemia. Over the previous decade, polygenic risk scores (PRS) derived from large genome-wide association studies have become broadly recognized for their potential in precision medicine. PRS, and now partitioned polygenic scores generated by clustering of risk variants, can quantify individual genetic predisposition to diabetes mellitus and reveal molecular heterogeneity responsible for variation in clinical presentation and prognoses. In this Review, we examine and contrast progress in the development of type 1 diabetes mellitus PRS and type 2 diabetes mellitus PRS, and discuss paths to further methodological advances. We examine how studies in the past 10 years have harnessed PRS and novel partitioned polygenic scores to reveal insights into diabetes mellitus aetiology and characterize changes in cellular and tissue-specific disease-modifying molecular pathways. Additionally, we discuss advances and opportunities in areas of clinical translation, including improved classification of diabetes mellitus type, screening of those at risk and personalized interventions informed by PRS. Finally, we emphasize the urgent need to overcome ancestry-related challenges and highlight current progress and gaps in ensuring the equitable translation of PRS for diabetes mellitus precision medicine. In this Review, the authors discuss different methods for assessing polygenic risk of diabetes mellitus and the utility of polygenic risk scores in classifying and screening for diabetes mellitus. The current limitations of these scores and ways of overcoming these limitations are also covered.