RESEARCHERS AT Trinity College Dublin have identified a genetic link between coeliac disease and juvenile diabetes. They have identified seven regions of the human genetic code thought responsible for causing coeliac disease and found that four are associated with Type I diabetes.
Details of the important new discovery are published this week in the journal, Nature Genetics. The findings may help identify specific genes implicated in these two very common diseases, said Dr Ross McManus of the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Trinity College Dublin.
Dr McManus collaborated with Prof David Van Heel of Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Prof Cisca Wijmenga of the Netherlands and Dr Panos Deloukas of the Sanger Centre in Britain.
"We collaborated in a study looking at hundreds of thousands of genetic markers in a fine-toothed comb search of the genome," he said.
It included a search for 1,000 different markers in more than 5,000 individuals from Ireland, Britain and the Netherlands. The markers were known to occur in people with coeliac disease, a condition where the body's immune system reacts strongly against the gluten in wheat, barley and rye flour. It is a very common condition here, with one in 100 people suffering from it, Dr McManus said.
The inappropriate reaction of the immune system is a key feature of the disease, as it is in rheumatoid arthritis and Type I diabetes.
"The key finding is we have discovered seven new gene regions [related to coeliac disease] and six have obvious immune system candidates within them," Dr McManus said. "Four of them have also been highlighted in Type I diabetes and one of them may be associated with rheumatoid arthritis," he added.
"That is a very encouraging finding. Now that allows us to target key causative variations. It might give us an angle on new therapies."
The markers point to regions of interest in the genome and now the researchers will go back and look at these regions in much greater detail. This will include looking at the specific genes.