For Some Crohn's Patients, This Dysfunctional Gene Could Be the Cause

In a study on the entire human genome, more than 200 genes for Crohn’s disease have been discovered. The findings, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, revealed a large number of genes associated with Crohn’s disease. Although the discovery proved valuable, the interaction among the genes themselves in Crohn’s disease have yet to be understood due to their complexity. “The discovery of so many gene locations for Crohn’s Disease is an important step forward in understanding the disease, which has a very complicated genetic basis. We hope that the method we have used here can be used to identify the genes involved in other diseases, which are similarly complex, for example, different cancers and diabetes,” said Dr. Nikolas Maniatis, senior author of the study. “The discovery of so many additional genes for Crohn’s and much more precise locations within the gene-regions was partly because of the highly informative genetic maps of the human genome that we have used in our approach to locating the genes involved. The success of our work was also attributable to the fact that we were able to subdivide patients by disease presentation. Data stratification can help sort out the genetics, and before long genetics will be able to sort out patients,” he added.