{"id":174685,"date":"2026-10-08T09:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T15:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tecscience.tec.mx\/en\/?p=174685"},"modified":"2026-10-13T09:40:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:40:29","slug":"origen-dna-100000-mexicans-data-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tecscience.tec.mx\/en\/health\/origen-dna-100000-mexicans-data-research\/","title":{"rendered":"After Analyzing the DNA of 100,000 Mexicans, oriGen Opens Its Data to Research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A little over a year ago, the oriGen Project<\/a> celebrated the enrollment of its 100,000th participant and the close of its fieldwork. On October 8, during the oriGen Data Forum<\/strong>, the project announced its latest milestone: 100% of oriGen\u2019s samples have been sequenced, for a total of 100,000 exomes, the part of DNA that contains the instructions for making proteins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this, the genomic, clinical, and epidemiological information from the cohort- the group of 100,000 participants who provided samples and health data- is now available for research projects under a new access policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have gone from generating data to turning it into knowledge,\u201d said Guillermo Torre<\/a>, rector of TecSalud<\/a>, at the forum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By December, the project expects to have 10,000 whole genomes that, according to its general director, Pablo Kuri<\/a>, will make up the most complete database of its kind in Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regeneron Genetics Center<\/a> carried out the sequencing, which took part in exchange for access to the data. The project also holds about 500,000 tubes of DNA, plasma and blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project\u2019s first results have already been published. In 1,427 whole genomes of participants recruited in the Monterrey metropolitan area, the team found nearly 100,000 single-letter DNA variants, and almost 3 million variants in total, that did not appear in the main reference databases, including that of the Mexico City Prospective Study<\/a>, a UNAM\u2013University of Oxford study that has tracked the health of more than 150,000 Mexico City residents since the late 1990s. The oriGen study was published on September 5 in the journal Nature Communications<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted to focus on capturing the greatest genetic diversity in the country,\u201d explained oriGen\u2019s scientific director, V\u00edctor Trevi\u00f1o<\/strong>. To build the full cohort, the team traveled to 19 states, collecting data from one or two people per household and avoiding recruiting relatives. The result shows in the 1,427 genomes analyzed: only 17% of participants had a relative, even a distant one, in the group, compared with 71% in the Mexico City Prospective Study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diabetes Prevalence Across Age Groups<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At what ages is diabetes most common in Mexico? To find out, Jaime Berumen<\/a>\u2019s team compared two cohorts: oriGen participants over 35 and those in the Mexico City Prospective Study. The age cutoff was needed because the latter only recruited people 35 and older, so the groups had to be comparable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Counting both diagnosed and undiagnosed cases (people who have diabetes without knowing it), the disease reached almost 24% in oriGen and 19% in the Mexico City Prospective Study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gap between the two studies was even wider for prediabetes, when blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not yet high enough to be considered diabetes. Among younger adults, about 20% of oriGen participants had prediabetes, compared with 10% in the Mexico City Prospective Study. Part of that difference may be because the two cohorts were recruited about 25 years apart and with different measurement methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The age analysis also revealed distinct patterns. According to Berumen, prediabetes and undiagnosed diabetes increase until about age 50 or 55 and then level off. Diagnosed diabetes, by contrast, keeps rising with age as cases accumulate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obesity also weighs differently depending on age. Before age 52, people with obesity had 4.5 times higher odds of having undiagnosed diabetes; after that age, their odds were about three times higher. Berumen said he will submit these results this month to The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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