Saw a couple articles (BusinessWeek, Wired.com, ScienceNews) commenting on a story in Nature about a study that found that variations in a single gene could result in different types of autoimmune diseases, including Crohn's Disease and diabetes.An excerpt:
The gene in question encodes an enzyme called sialic acid acetylesterase or SIAE, which regulates the activity of the immune system’s antibody-producing B cells. About 2 percent to 3 percent of people with autoimmune disorders have defects in the enzyme that allow B cells to run amok and make antibodies that attack the body, a team led by Shiv Pillai of Massachusetts General Hospital in Charlestown and Harvard Medical School reports online June 16 inNature.
“It’s a seminal paper because it is so applicable to a wide variety of autoimmune diseases, says Judy Cho, a Yale geneticist not associated with the study. The finding suggests that enhancing the enzyme’s activity could help treat disease in people with autoimmune disorders.
Definitely an interesting finding!