Guest guest Posted July 30, 2007 Report Share Posted July 30, 2007 Certain MHC alleles have a ~12x weight in MS risk. According to news.nature, not a single further locus has been firmly linked to MS since the MHC finding 30 years ago. http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070723/full/070723-14.html The new risk alleles reported today are extremely weak, with risk ratios at ~1.2-1.3x. However, at least one allele has been confirmed in multiple populations, so I am guessing it's no artifact. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 30, 2007 Report Share Posted July 30, 2007 Can someone explain this in laymen's terms please? I don't understand one word of that. Thank you. KLS Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 30, 2007 Report Share Posted July 30, 2007 > The new risk alleles reported today are extremely weak, with risk > ratios at ~1.2-1.3x. However, at least one allele has been confirmed > in multiple populations, so I am guessing it's no artifact. As I have explored here before, if two alleles have similar level(s) of function, the protein corresponding to their *gene* can be very important in pathogenesis even if there is very little disease risk difference between the two alleles. This paper's discussion section has an interesting analysis of IL-7 function. IL-7 is one of the loci, and this paper one of the papers, germane to today's news story: http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/ng2103.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 30, 2007 Report Share Posted July 30, 2007 > The new risk alleles reported today are extremely weak, with risk > ratios at ~1.2-1.3x. However, at least one allele has been confirmed > in multiple populations, so I am guessing it's no artifact. As I have explored here before, if two alleles have similar level(s) of function, the protein corresponding to their *gene* can be very important in pathogenesis even if there is very little disease risk difference between the two alleles. This paper's discussion section has an interesting analysis of IL-7 function. IL-7 is one of the loci, and this paper one of the papers, germane to today's news story: http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/ng2103.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 2, 2007 Report Share Posted August 2, 2007 Thanks so much for explaining it! KLSGet a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 2, 2007 Report Share Posted August 2, 2007 You'd probably need to read an intro cell bio textbook to be able to understand deeply. But basically, we humans all have the same DNA genes (around 30,000 of them). For a given gene there may exist two or more different variants, called alleles. The different alleles of a gene are substantially similar but have significant differences in molecular structure. Genes themselves don't do much, they just hold information. The information in genes gets read to make proteins which carry out most actual functions in biology. Different alleles of a gene read out as slightly different proteins that may have functional differences from one another - differences ranging from tiny to huge. And so it is that different alleles can affect the body in ways that may increase or decrease the risk of getting a certain disease. It's pretty easy to determine what alleles someone is carrying, so by looking for associations you can find out which alleles (and which proteins) figure in diseases. > Can someone explain this in laymen's terms please? I don't understand one > word of that. Thank you. > > KLS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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