New Crohn's Disease Genes Found

Big news in the world of IBD!

Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis represent the two common forms
of idiopathic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), each with a prevalence
of roughly 100–150 per 100,000 individuals of European ancestry
This week in Nature Genetics a "genome-wide association study of Crohn disease
and two independent replication studies identify several new regions of association to Crohn disease."

This has been a disease that has multiple postulated causes. Some of the more modern include host-bacteria interaction leading to inflammation and disease. These associations implicate this as a possibility. More importantly they indicate risk of disease
The genes are in addition to CARD15(NOD2) and IL23R.

A coding variant in ATG16L1, the latter of which was also recently reported by another group is proven to be required for pathogenesis of Crohn's Disease. This gene is responsible for a process known as autophagy (required for our intrinsic immune system)

For non-scientsists/physicians

What does this mean? Well alot. If this is true, which it looks likely, then the next step is to clear the bowels(removing bacterium/Salmonella) of these persons with this polymoprhism. This would be another example of the possibility of personalized medicine.
Treatment based on predisposition. I am sure there are also pharma companies looking at halting ATG16L12's function with RNA intereference as demonstrated in this study!