March 8th, 2010 | 
Author: WHAT: Scientists have identified a region of a full of heart chromosome that is associated with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a newly recognized allergic disease. People with EoE frequently have difficulty eating or may have being allergic to one or greater quantity foods. This study further suggests that a suspected so-called chief allergy gene may play a role in the expanding of this rare but debilitating malady.
EoE is characterized by conflagration and accumulation of a specific type of immune cell, called every eosinophil, in the esophagus. Symptoms of EoE vary through period of life: In young children a greater symptom is spitting up viands, at the same time that in older children and adults, the condition may cause food to get to be stuck in the esophagus. These symptoms may improve when a person with EoE is restricted to a liquid form diet that contains no protein allergens or is placed steady a diet that lacks six highly allergenic foods (milk, soy, eggs, wheat, peanut and seafood). EoE is not the similar as more common food allergies, that in addition be in actual possession of serious consequences. Little is known about what causes EoE, otherwise than that the malady runs in families suggesting that specific genes may be involved.
Investigators led by Marc Rothenberg, M.D., Ph.D., at Cincinnati Children’sitting Medical Center Hospital, and supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, both part of the National Institutes of Health, performed a genome-wide association analytics in children through EoE and healthy children. This type of study detects markers of genetic diversity across the entire human genome and allows researchers to zero in forward a region of a chromosome to identify genes that sway health and the evolution of disease.
In this study, the investigators identified changes in genes within a region on chromosome 5 that were in a high degree. associated by EoE. One of the genes in this region encodes a protein called thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP). When the investigators measured the utterance levels of this gene in children with EoE, they found it was other thing highly expressed than in children without the disorder. This deduction suggests that TSLP plays some role in EoE.
TSLP is made by epithelial cells, which line interior and external surfaces of the body. It has before that time been described as a master swinge that may turn on other allergic diseases, of the like kind as asthma and atopic dermatitis (eczema).
Future inquiry is needed to determine suppose that these findings might lead to a genetic test conducive to TSLP and whether drugs that stop the production or function of TSLP might be beneficial in treating EoE.
ARTICLE: ME Rothenberg et al. Common variants at 5q22 associate by the agency of pediatric eosinophilic esophagitis. Nature Genetics DOI: 10.1038/ng.547 (2010).
WHO: Matthew Fenton, Ph.D., Chief, Asthma, Allergy and Inflammation Branch, NIAID Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation.
Source:
Julie Wu
NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Posted in Allergy Treatments