Lay summary
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) and gout disproportionately affect Māori and Pacific people compared to other populations in New Zealand. The large burden of CKD and gout in Māori and Pacific people suggests that a sizeable component can be attributed to genetics and that this population has a unique set of genetic variants that predispose them to CKD and gout. The aim of this project is to identify Māori and Pacific specific variants that are biologically informative for CKD and / gout prevention and management in these populations. Using data from genome-wide association studies and established bioinformatic and molecular pipelines we will assign function to genetic variants that control gene expression and assess how these regulatory variants can modify the effect that Māori and Pacific-specific genetic variants have on CKD and / or gout. Thus the proposed research will identify clinically important and disease-relevant Māori and Pacific-specific genotypes.