Leprosy Genes

Edward Glamkowski writes "Science Daily (among others) has an article about host genes that make people vulnerable to leprosy. Appearently the disease still affects over one million people in 91 countries today. "This is the second study, published in 2003 by McGill/CGDN scientists, that illustrates the importance of host genes in infectious disease." Appearently they did a study on Legionnaire's disease as well and plan on studying malaria and TB."

Comments

Hansen's disease?

[alwayslurking]

I got the impression that researchers had stopped using "leprosy" to describe the condition because of the negative connotations amongst the general public. Certainly, you hear a lot more about Hansen's disease in the British media.

The Science Daily article refers to leprosy throughout though, suggesting that North America stills prefer that nomenclature. Is this some kind of accreditation thing, akin to Farnsworth and Baird?

intracellular pathogens

[Bowling Moses]

Before anybody asks how they're linked, one way is that they all at some point reside inside the cells of their unfortunate host:
Mycobacterium leprae is the causative agent of leprosy aka Hansen's Disease and invades neurons.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes tuberculosis, and during the course of infection can reside inside of macrophages.
Plasmodium falciparum causes malaria, and invades red blood cells.
Legionella pneumophila causes Legionnaire's Disease aka Legionellosis, and at one point in infection resides inside lung cells.
Interestingly, except for P. falciparum these pathogens are bacteria. P. falciparum is a single cellular eukaryote.

Re:intracellular pathogens

[Simon Field]

It would also be interesting to know if the gene that allows the infection is somehow useful for something beneficial, causing it to be conserved.

Or is leprosy a young disease, and there hasn't been time for the gene to be selected against?

Re:intracellular pathogens

[20_ooodbye]

Leprosy is a very old disease. It has undergone a very reductive evolution to the point that is utterly depentant on its human host to survive.

The genes that cause susceptibility in humans may be "plugging a gap" in the pathogen's range of biochemical reactions.

It seems possible the susceptibility genes do bestow some advantage to their owner until they are exposed to the bug, but if as it seems most people can live happily without the genes then a treatment might be abled to be made based on this .

Hansen's Disease is not Biblical Leprosy

[PepperedApple]

I learned in a class that the leprosy in the Bible is not the same as Hansen's Disease, or the modern day leprosy. this explains some of the differences.

susceptibility genes

[gene_tailor]

Identifying genes which make certain people more susceptible to certain bugs is an exciting growth area in science which has been greatly aided by the sequencing of the human genome. With regard to leprosy in particular, only a minority of the people exposed to the pathogen will go on to develop the disease. Several groups have been looking for genes which make these individuals more susceptible, and about a dozen candidates areas of the genome are known from previous research. Adrian Hill's group at Oxford, for example, has mapped two other different leprosy-susc. loci (on Chromosomes 10 and 20). Hopefully, once such genes are studied in more detail it will be possible to develop better treatments or even preventative measures.