Researchers Discover Vitiligo Gene
The researchers from St George’s, University of London, the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center (UCDHSC) and the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes have revealed a link between gene and vitiligo plus other autoimmune diseases.
They analyzed two independent groups of families enrolled from 1996 – 2005 and obtained samples from a total of 656 Caucasian individuals from 114 extended families with vitiligo and other autoimmune diseases from America and the UK.
When the researchers started studying vitiligo they found that vitiligo patients had a risk of developing other autoimmune diseases, as do their relative, even those without vitiligo.
Researchers while searching the genome found that a key gene (NALP1) was involved in predisposing to vitiligo and other autoimmune diseases that ran in these families. NALP1 is a gene that controls the part of the immune system which is responsible for alerting the body about the viral and bacterial attacks.
During this research they got the answer of why the immune system attacks body’s own tissues. The answer was over-reactivity of the sensor NALP1. The over-reactivity of NALP1 could trigger a response to the wrong stimulus. All the samples and information collected from patients were sent to University of Colorado for analysis.
Richard Spritz lead investigator for this study said that NALP1 for the first time has been specifically implicated in autoimmune diseases. “Since NALP1 appears to be part of our body’s early-warning system for viral or bacterial attack, this gives us ideas about how to try to discover the environmental triggers of these diseases. This finding may also open up new approaches to treatment, possibly for many different autoimmune diseases.” he added.
Dr. Spritz and his team are planning soon begin arranging a clinical trial of a new treatment for vitiligo based on the discovery of NALP1. Dr. Spriztz anticipates labs using the information from the UCDHSC study to replicate or test the results in patients with other autoimmune diseases to see how broad potential applications might be.
“All diseases are complex, the result of different genes and environmental risk factors acting together in concert. But if NALP1 turns out to be one of the major genes involved in numerous autoimmune diseases, and if we can interrupt its negative effects, we may have the chance to treat many different chronic autoimmune disorders like vitiligo, lupus and psoriasis and perhaps eventually eliminate them altogether,” said Dr. Spritz.
Source: http://www.sgul.ac.uk