Comment on: Marquez et al. Low-Frequency Variants in HMGA1 Are Not Associated With Type 2 Diabetes Risk. Diabetes 2012;61:524–530

We read with interest the article in Diabetes by Marquez et al. (1) that followed a recent abstract from this group (2) in which it reported that HMGA1 gene variants were associated with type 2 diabetes (T2D). It is surprising, therefore, that the same authors now conclude the opposite (1). We have described four functional HMGA1 variants that were associated with T2D in ∼10% of 3,278 Italian patients (3) and confirmed this finding in two other populations—U.S. and French (3). We have no explanation as to why the Marquez group does not agree with itself. There are several explanations, however, for the discrepancies between our studies …