To determine whether and how the possession of risk alleles at the VPS13C locus might affect the expression of nearby or remotely located genes, we used reporter-luciferase assays in non-β-cells (HEK293) and in β-cell lines from mice (MIN6) and humans (1.1B4 and EndoCβH1). As shown in Fig. 2, inclusion of the risk (C) allele at the previously implicated causal SNP rs7163757 significantly lowered the enhancer/promoter activity of reporter constructs bearing this variant vs. the presence of the protective (T) allele in HEK293, MIN6, and 1.1B4 cells. A similar tendency (P < 0.1) was observed in EndoCβH1 cells (Fig. 2). These data are thus consistent with an enhancer function for this region, whose activity is lowered in carriers of risk alleles.