Exploring metformin monotherapy response in Type-2 diabetes: Computational insights through clinical, genomic, and proteomic markers using machine learning algorithms

BACKGROUND: In 2016, the UK had 4.5 million people with diabetes, predominantly Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). The NHS allocates £10 billion (9% of its budget) to manage diabetes. Metformin is the primary treatment for T2DM, but 35% of patients don't benefit from it, leading to complications. This study aims to delve into metformin's efficacy using clinical, genomic, and proteomic data to uncover new biomarkers and build a Machine Learning predictor for early metformin response detection.

METHODS: Here we report analysis from a T2DM dataset of individuals prescribed metformin monotherapy from the Diastrat cohort recruited at the Altnagelvin Area Hospital, Northern Ireland.

RESULTS: In the clinical data analysis, comparing responders (those achieving HbA1c ≤ 48 mmol/mol) to non-responders (with HbA1c > 48 mmol/mol), we identified that creatinine levels and bodyweight were more negatively correlated with response than non-response. In genomic analysis, we identified statistically significant (p-value <0.05) variants rs6551649 (LPHN3), rs6551654 (LPHN3), rs4495065 (LPHN3) and rs7940817 (TRPC6) which appear to differentiate the responders and non-responders. In proteomic analysis, we identified 15 statistically significant (p-value <0.05, q-value <0.05) proteomic markers that differentiate controls, responders, non-responders and treatment groups, out of which the most significant were HAOX1, CCL17 and PAI that had fold change ∼2. A machine learning model was build; the best model predicted non-responders with 83% classification accuracy.

CONCLUSION: Further testing in prospective validation cohorts is required to determine the clinical utility of the proposed model.