Genetic basis for Crohn's disease discovered

Two teams of researchers, in the US and in France, have pinpointed a gene which is involved in some cases of Crohn's disease, an inflammatory disorder of the gastrointestinal system. The research, published in the journal Nature, shows how a gene on chromosome 16 codes for a protein called NOD2 which seems to protect against the disease by stimulating an immune response to bacteria in the gut.

People with a defect in the gene, about 15 per cent of Crohn's sufferers, seem to lack the signalling required to produce an immune response, thereby increasing their susceptibility to the disease. The same gene defect is present in eight per cent of the healthy population, suggesting that the disease is not wholly genetic in cause. The incidence of Crohn's has also grown rapidly over the past 50 years.

The team leaders, Dr Gilles Thomas and Dr Gabriel Nunez, hope that their discovery will enable better treatment of the disease in the future. 'Restoration of proper NOD2 function in such individuals could represent a promising future preventative therapy.'