Crohn's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Crohn's Disease, including details on symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, causes, medication.

Genetic determinants of ulcerative colitis include the ECM1 locus and five loci implicated in Crohn's disease.

Fisher SA, Tremelling M, Anderson CA, Gwilliam R, Bumpstead S, Prescott NJ, Nimmo ER, Massey D, Berzuini C, Johnson C, Barrett JC, Cummings FR, Drummond H, Lees CW, Onnie CM, Hanson CE, Blaszczyk K, Inouye M, Ewels P, Ravindrarajah R, Keniry A, Hunt S, Carter M, Watkins N, Ouwehand W, Lewis CM, Cardon L, , Lobo A, Forbes A, Sanderson J, Jewell DP, Mansfield JC, Deloukas P, Mathew CG, Parkes M, Satsangi J

Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, King's College London School of Medicine, 8th Floor Guy's Tower, Guy's Hospital, London SE1 9RT, UK.

We report results of a nonsynonymous SNP scan for ulcerative colitis and identify a previously unknown susceptibility locus at ECM1. We also show that several risk loci are common to ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease (IL23R, IL12B, HLA, NKX2-3 and MST1), whereas autophagy genes ATG16L1 and IRGM, along with NOD2 (also known as CARD15), are specific for Crohn's disease. These data provide the first detailed illustration of the genetic relationship between these common inflammatory bowel diseases.

Published 29 May 2008 in Nat Genet, 40(6): 710-2.
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