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RESEARCH IDENTIFIES NEW GENES LINKED WITH
MULTIPLE
SCLEROSIS -- Of interest to Gulf War vets -
"Having this
genetic road map will be of incredible
importance
in developing new therapies."
For more information on multiple sclerosis, use
the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.
php?q=multiple+sclerosis&op=ph
Story here...
http://www.nytimes.
com/reuters/news/news-ms-g
ene.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Story below:
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Research Identifies New Genes Linked With MS
By REUTERS
CHICAGO (Reuters) - After decades of dead ends, scientists have
identified two genes that may raise the risk of multiple sclerosis,
lending insight into the causes of the debilitating disease.
The findings, released in two medical journals on Sunday, represent the
first genes conclusively linked to multiple sclerosis in more than 20
years, experts said.
MS is a disease of the central nervous system that affects about 350,000
people in the United States and more than 2.5 million people globally.
In a large-scale study appearing in an online version of the New England
Journal of Medicine, teams of international researchers scanned the
entire human genome of more than 12,000 people for MS risk factors.
That study uncovered two new gene suspects, both of which are thought to
play a role in autoimmune disease.
Until now, the only genetic link identified with MS was the major
histocompatibility complex, or MHC, a large cluster of genes essential
to the immune system.
Neither of the newly discovered genes appears to be as instrumental to
developing the disease as MHC, but the research is important because it
lends insight into other genetic factors that raise a person's risk of
multiple sclerosis.
"Having this genetic road map will be of incredible importance in
developing new therapies," said Dr. David Hafler of Harvard Medical
School, who worked on the genome study.
LIKELY SUSPECT
The role of one of the gene suspects in MS -- a variant of the
interleukin-7 or IL-7 receptor -- was confirmed in two papers published
online on Sunday in Nature Genetics.
The gene helps control the activity of regulatory T cells, which
suppress the activation of the body's immune system.
"This discovery brings us into a whole new pathway that could have a
very important role in understanding the fundamental mechanisms that
trigger MS," said Dr. Stephen Hauser, professor of neurology at
University of California San Francisco, who worked on studies released
online in the New England Journal of Medicine and Nature Genetics.
While the studies used different methods, they both pointed the finger
at IL-7.
The Nature Genetics study, led by Jonathan Haines of Vanderbilt
University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, and Margaret Pericak-Vance
of the University of Miami, examined variants in three genes suspected
to have a role in the disease. It found variants in IL-7 receptors were
consistently more common in MS patients than in healthy people.
Researchers observed a similar association in a separate study in Nature
Genetics by Jan Hillert of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and
colleagues, who looked at a large collection of people from Denmark,
Finland, Norway and Sweden.
The other gene identified by the whole genome scan -- the IL-2 receptor
-- has been linked to two other autoimmune diseases: type 1 diabetes and
autoimmune thyroid disease.
"The story here is the commonality of autoimmune disease," Hafler said.
Researchers believe both environmental and genetic factors play a role
in the development of MS, which attacks and destroys the insulation
along nerve fibers.
MS symptoms range from mild muscle weakness to partial or complete
paralysis.
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Larry Scott --
