A quick news bite about some new links found for a genetic root for psoriasis and lupus. I like that the reporter doesn’t try to dress up this announcement as anything other than a small advance in our knowledge of these 2 diseases.
The research into a provable genetic link for rosacea symptoms is still at a very early stage. Maybe one day the understanding of rosacea will approach the body of knowledge we have about diseases like psoriasis.
From: Psoriasis, lupus linked to genes: study
Scientists have identified genes linked to psoriasis and lupus, diseases triggered by immune responses that cause painful inflammation, separate studies say.
Psoriasis: In two separate groups examined, one in the Netherlands and the other in Germany, psoriasis sufferers had significantly more copies of the suspect gene (beta-defensin) than individuals not troubled by the skin disease.
Many diseases originate from both genetic and environmental factors, and even when genes do play a dominant role, there can be more than one culprit, making it very difficult to determine the root cause.
But linking a particular genetic variation to an illness is a key step and can give researchers leads for new treatments, possibly even a cure.
Lupus: A team of researchers in Britain and the United States led by Timothy Vyse of Imperial College in London showed that individuals with a particular genetic variation near a gene called TNFSF4 were at higher risk of developing lupus.
In a group of nearly 500 affected families in Britain, along with a smaller sampling in the United States, the researchers found that this set of genetic variants seemed to boost the expression of TNFSF4 in blood lymphocytes in lupus sufferers.
Lymphcytes are white blood cells which, triggered by the immune system, attack foreign objects in the body, such as bacteria.
