Biallelic pathogenic variants in SLC19A2 (the solute carrier family 19 member 2, which encodes thiamine transporter 1, responsible for thiamine intake) cause a recessive syndromic diabetes of infancy or early childhood in the context of thiamine-responsive megaloblastic anaemia, characterised by sensorineural deafness. Indeed, it has been reported, although only once, that even a heterozygous missense loss-of-function variant of SLC19A2 causes dominantly inherited non-syndromic diabetes. Finally, it is unknown whether rare SLC19A2 pathogenic variants modulate the risk of type 2 diabetes at the population level. We investigated the role of SLC19A2 heterozygous variants in both autosomal dominant mild hyperglycaemia and type 2 diabetes.

We performed whole exome sequencing in two probands with mild hyperglycaemia and in 191,140 samples from the UK Biobank.

Here we report two different heterozygous missense likely pathogenic variants of SLC19A2 (NM_006996.2) associated with non-syndromic mild hyperglycaemia in two pedigrees (c.515G>T and c.1063A>C missense variants, respectively), clearly confirming the only report available so far suggesting this link. In both pedigrees, individuals who carried an additional variant in one of the established monogenic diabetes genes (i.e. PDX1, NM_000209.3 and KCNJ11, NM_000525.3) showed an anticipation of disease onset of 25–31 years. Finally, 12 rare null variants in SLC19A2 were associated with type 2 diabetes (p=0.00033; OR 3.7; 95% CI 1.3, 227) and increased HbA1c levels (p=0.019, effect [π]=2.2 ± 0.92) in the UK Biobank.

Taken together with previous evidence, these data indicate that SLC19A2 variability modulates glucose homeostasis, from recessive syndromic diabetes, to autosomal dominant mild hyperglycaemia, to type 2 diabetes.