(Press-News.org) Genetic changes that occur in patients with the bowel condition Crohn's disease could hold clues to fighting the illness.
Scientists have identified chemical changes in the DNA of patients with Crohn's disease that could help to screen people for the disease.
These changes can be detected in blood samples, opening the door to a simple test for Crohn's disease.
The findings also offer clues to how the condition develops and reveal possible targets for new treatments.
Several genes have been linked to Crohn's disease but not everybody who inherits these genes will develop the condition. The discovery sheds light on how environmental factors that vary between individuals – such as diet and gut bacteria – can trigger Crohn's disease in some people who have inherited these genes.
A study involving children with Crohn's disease in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Glasgow – led by the University of Edinburgh – identified chemical changes in their DNA that affect how their genes work.
The genes that are affected by these changes could represent useful targets for new treatments, the scientists say.
A DNA test alone would not be enough to diagnose the disease but it could pinpoint those at most risk and help to reduce the number of people who are put forward for further tests, researchers say.
It could also help to monitor progression of the disease and how patients respond to treatment.
Crohn's disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease and a common cause of chronic ill-health in the UK. It is a particular problem in children in Scotland, where the incidence of the disease has increased by 500 per cent in the past 50 years.
At present there is no way to prevent Crohn's disease and therapy is focused on treating the symptoms, which may include abdominal pain, diarrhoea and severe weight loss.
Professor Jack Satsangi, from the Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, said: "Our study gives the strongest evidence yet that epigenetic changes are involved in Crohn's disease. The findings provide a potential mechanism whereby diet or other environmental factors may modify genetic material to cause Crohn's disease. We hope the findings will help to identify much-needed treatment opportunities for this debilitating condition."
INFORMATION:
The study is published in the journal Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.
Crohn's disease gene discovery points towards new treatments
2014-08-26
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Bombarded by explosive waves of information, scientists review new ways to process and analyze Big Data
2014-08-26
Big Data presents scientists with unfolding opportunities, including, for instance, the possibility of discovering heterogeneous characteristics in the population leading to the development of personalized treatments and highly individualized services. But ever-expanding data sets introduce new challenges in terms of statistical analysis, bias sampling, computational costs, noise accumulation, spurious correlations, and measurement errors.
The era of Big Data – marked by a Big Bang-like explosion of information about everything from patterns of use of the World Wide ...
Chinese scientists use laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy to identify toxic cooking 'gutter oil'
2014-08-26
The illegal use of waste cooking oil in parts of the nationwide food system is threatening the public's health in China.
Now scientists led by Professor Ding Hongbin at the Dalian University of Technology, in northeastern China, present a new means to confront this problem. In a study published in the Chinese Science Bulletin, Ding and fellow researchers at the university's School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering outline the potential use of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) to rapidly distinguish between "gutter oil" and safe, edible oil.
...
Same-beam VLBI Technology successfully monitors the Chang'E-3 rover's movement on the lunar surface
2014-08-26
By using the same-beam VLBI technology, differential phase delay successfully monitored the lunar rover's movement during the Chang'E-3 mission when rover and lander was carrying out the tasks of separation and took photos of each other. The sensitivity of rover motion monitoring was between 50-100mm.Furthermore, relative position between rover and lander was precisely measured by taking the use of the DPD's changing trend. Professor LIU Qing hui and his student ZHENG Xin from the Shanghai Astronomical of observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, obtained this result when ...
Laser pulse turns glass into a metal
2014-08-26
Quartz glass does not conduct electric current, it is a typical example of an insulator. With ultra-short laser pulses, however, the electronic properties of glass can be fundamentally changed within femtoseconds (1 fs = 10^-15 seconds). If the laser pulse is strong enough, the electrons in the material can move freely. For a brief moment, the quartz glass behaves like metal. It becomes opaque and conducts electricity. This change of material properties happens so quickly that it can be used for ultra-fast light based electronics. Scientists at the Vienna University of ...
Study calls into question link between prenatal antidepressant exposure and autism risk
2014-08-26
Previous studies that have suggested an increased risk of autism among children of women who took antidepressants during pregnancy may actually reflect the known increased risk associated with severe maternal depression. In a study receiving advance online publication in Molecular Psychiatry, investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) report that – while a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder was more common in the children of mothers prescribed antidepressants during pregnancy than in those with no prenatal exposure – when the severity of the mother's depression ...
Study: Earth can sustain more terrestrial plant growth than previously thought
2014-08-26
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new analysis suggests the planet can produce much more land-plant biomass – the total material in leaves, stems, roots, fruits, grains and other terrestrial plant parts – than previously thought.
The study, reported in Environmental Science and Technology, recalculates the theoretical limit of terrestrial plant productivity, and finds that it is much higher than many current estimates allow.
"When you try to estimate something over the whole planet, you have to make some simplifying assumptions," said University of Illinois plant biology professor ...
New tool to probe cancer's molecular make-up
2014-08-26
Scientists have shown how to better identify and measure vital molecules that control cell behaviour – paving the way for improved tools for diagnosis, prediction and monitoring of cancer.
Researchers from the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute based at The University of Manchester – part of the Manchester Cancer Research Centre – and the Institute of Cancer Research, London, looked at protein kinases, molecules that control various aspects of cellular function.
The study, funded by a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)/Pfizer CASE studentship ...
Symptoms after breast cancer surgery need to be treated on an individual basis
2014-08-26
For those affected, breast cancer is a dramatic diagnosis. Patients often have to endure chemotherapy and surgery, which, depending on the individual scenario, may mean breast conserving surgery or breast removal—mastectomy. In the aftermath, many women experience symptoms such as pain, fatigue/exhaustion, or sleep disturbances. However, the symptoms are highly individual, as Stefan Feiten and colleagues emphasize in a recent study reported in Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2014; 111: 537-44).
The authors state that it is crucial for good aftercare ...
Life in Saxony-Anhalt: More attention should be paid to the heart!
2014-08-26
A lack of education, an unhealthy diet, and unemployment go straight to the heart—quite literally, because all three range among the risks that cause ischemic heart disease or contribute to its development. According to a recent study reported by epidemiologists Andreas und Maximilian Stang in Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2014; 111: 530-6), the risk factors for heart disease are higher in Saxony-Anhalt than in all other German states, and more persons die from heart disease in the state.
Many of the risk factors could be treated in a more targeted ...
A high-resolution bedrock map for the Antarctic Peninsula
2014-08-26
26.08.2014: Antarctic glaciers respond sensitively to changes in the Atmosphere/Ocean System. Assessing and projecting the dynamic response of glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula to changed atmospheric and oceanic forcing requires high-resolution ice thickness data as an essential geometric constraint for ice flow models. Therefore, a Swiss-German team of scientists developed a complete bedrock data set for the Antarctic Peninsula on a 100 m grid. They calculated the spatial distribution of ice thickness based on surface topography and ice dynamic modelling.
Daniel Farinotti, ...