Medindia LOGIN REGISTER
Medindia

‘Inflammation Gene’ identified by scientist

by Medindia Content Team on Oct 10 2005 7:54 PM

A gene on chromosome 15 regulates inflammation according to scientists. Inflammation has a role to play in a wide range of disorders, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s besides infections.

John Blangero, Ph.D. and senior author of the study said: “Practically every common disease involves an inflammation component,” The research was done at Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) in San Antonio.

“So the discovery of a new player in the inflammation pathway opens up many potential avenues for intervention on a broad range of health issues,” he further added.

This research is likely to be of immense use to doctors, biomedical and pharmaceutical researchers, as it is now known that inflammation plays a role in many human disorders.

The research study found that when cells are under stress mis-folded proteins build up and ‘SEPS1’ gene acts as a type of “garbage truck” that helps in clearing cells.

Interestingly people with a genetic variation that of ‘SEPS1’ are not able to purify the cells by clearing out the bad proteins tend to suffer higher levels of inflammation than people in whom the gene fulfills that role more efficiently, according to the study.

Greg Collier, Ph.D., CEO of ChemGenex, said the discovery of SEPS1 and its function could help in taking a new approach to inhibit inflammation by using drugs that can regulate SEPS1.

Advertisement


Advertisement