Rheumatoid arthritis is a common autoimmune disease in which the individual’s own immune system attacks the lining of the joints, causing stiffness and muscle aches. Like other autoimmune diseases, development of rheumatoid arthritis is likely caused by a complex combination of genetic and environmental factors. Recent research into the genetics of the disease has identified many of the genetic factors, and new studies continue to implicate additional variants that may influence risk.A pair of such studies published this week in
Nature Genetics found several new genetic variants associated with rheumatoid arthritis.
In Japan, a team led by Yuta Kochi and Kazuhiko Yamamoto from the RIKEN Center for Genomic Medicine
identified a variant, associated with rheumatoid arthritis risk in over 2,000 Japanese individuals with the disease and 3,400 individuals free of the disease. The
second study, headed by Eli Stahl and Robert Plenge at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, confirmed the same association in over 10,000 people of European ancestry with rheumatoid arthritis.One of the variants is in an area of the genome associated with a risk for Crohn’s disease and contains a gene called
CCR6 that is known to be involved in the immune system. In follow-up experiments, the RIKEN team demonstrated that the different versions of the variant affect the behavior of
CCR6, providing a potential biological explanation for the variant’s contribution to rheumatoid arthritis risk. Stahl and his colleagues also found several other genomic regions associated with rheumatoid arthritis in people with European ancestry, some of which had not yet been linked to autoimmune disease.
SNPwatch gives you the latest news about research linking various traits and conditions to individual genetic variations. These studies are exciting because they offer a glimpse into how genetics may affect our bodies and health; but in most cases, more work is needed before this research can provide information of value to individuals. For that reason it is important to remember that like all information we provide, the studies we describe in SNPwatch are for research and educational purposes only. SNPwatch is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice; you should always seek the advice of your physician or other appropriate healthcare professional with any questions you may have regarding diagnosis, cure, treatment or prevention of any disease or other medical condition.
