Gene pattern predicts who will live the longest
(Reuters) – Researchers have found a pattern of genes that predicts with more accuracy than ever before who might live to be 100 or older — even if they have other genes linked with disease.
Their findings, published in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, offer the tantalizing possibility of predicting who might hope for a longer life. They also cast doubt on the accuracy of tests being marketed now that offer to predict a person’s risk of chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Several teams of researchers have identified gene patterns linked with extreme old age. But the researchers led by Paola Sebastiani and Dr. Thomas Perls at Boston University say theirs provides the best accuracy yet.
(more…)
“Jumping genes” make each person unique: study
(Reuters) – Stretches of DNA known as “jumping” genes are far more common than anyone thought, and almost everyone has a unique pattern of them, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
They also found an unexpectedly high number of these jumping genes, known as transposons, in lung tumors and said they may hold clues to the highly deadly cancer.
“We found that if you have a child, the child could have one or more new copies of these transposons that you don’t have,” Scott Devine of the University of Maryland School of Medicine said in a statement.
“From these findings, we predict that there is going to be more variation in human genomes than scientists first believed,” added Devine, who led the research while at Emory University in Atlanta.
(more…)
Scientists find gene links to vitamin D deficiency
(Reuters) – Scientists have found three genetic differences that affect a person’s risk of being deficient in the “sunshine” vitamin D and say their work helps explain why sunlight and a good diet aren’t always enough.
British and American researchers studied the genes of almost 34,000 white Europeans and found that variants of three genes involved in cholesterol synthesis, vitamin D metabolism and vitamin D transport may increase the risk of deficiency.
“Our findings establish a role for common genetic variants in regulation of circulating vitamin D concentrations,” said Elina Hypponen of the University College London Institute of Child Health, who worked on the study.
She said the presence of the variants at the three specific genes more than doubled the risk of vitamin D insufficiency.
Most vitamin D is made by the body as a natural by-product of the skin’s exposure to sunlight. It is vital for health, as it helps cells absorb calcium and is key for bone strength.
(more…)
Walgreens will be first U.S. retailer to sell gene-testing kits
By Rob Waters
Personal gene-testing is coming to a Walgreens near you and may, in the process, be setting off a battle with U.S. regulators.
Starting May 14, Walgreen Co. will become the first U.S. retailer to sell test kits, for $30, that promise customers information about their risk for developing diseases and passing conditions to their unborn children. Buyers get vials in which they can send their saliva to Pathway Genomics, the closely held San Diego company that makes the tests, then pay another $79 to $249 to get a detailed report assessing their genes.
At least two other U.S. companies market consumer gene tests on the Internet. Selling the kit, which hasn’t been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, in a national chain may give gene tests a higher public profile that will entice more customers to try them, said Jim Woodman, Pathway’s vice president for corporate strategy.
(more…)
Family DNA Maps May Speed Disease-Gene Discoveries, Doctors Say
By Jason Gale and Rob Waters
March 11 (Bloomberg) — Fewer genetic mutations are inherited than scientists previously thought, according to two family-based studies that promise to speed the discovery of so- called disease genes.
Two U.S. research teams conducted independent, genome-wide studies to pinpoint the mutations responsible for three rare diseases. The approach, detailed yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine and Science, is being used to find genes that may mitigate inherited disorders and offer hope for people with conditions such as Huntington’s disease.
Comparing the genetic blueprint of parents and their children can narrow the hunt for disease-causing genes to a handful of candidates rather than the thousands that are identified when a genome is analyzed in isolation, said Leroy Hood, a researcher who helped sequence the first family genome at Seattle’s Institute for Systems Biology. San Diego-based Illumina Inc. can sequence a human genome for less than $10,000.
(more…)
Inexpensive Gene Tests for Parents-to-Be
The new movie “Extraordinary Measures” is based on the true story of a father who starts a company to develop a treatment for the rare genetic disease threatening to kill two of his children before they turn 10.
Now, a Silicon Valley start-up is making the bold claim that it can help eradicate that disease and more than 100 others by alerting parents-to-be who have the carrier genes, The New York Times’s Andrew Pollack writes.
The company, Counsyl, is selling a test that it says can tell couples whether they are at risk of having children with a range of inherited diseases, including cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs, spinal muscular atrophy, sickle cell disease and Pompe disease (the one afflicting the children in the movie).
St. Jude, Washington U. launch $65M effort to ID pediatric cancer genes
By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
Two leading medical centers on Monday launched the largest effort to date to find all of the genetic mutations that cause childhood cancer.
Doctors at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis say the three-year, $65 million project could help them develop new treatments for pediatric cancer, which strikes more 10,000 American children under age 14 every year.
“For the first time in history, we have the tools to identify all of the genetic abnormalities that turn a white blood cell into a leukemia cell or a brain cell into a brain tumor,” says William Evans, chief executive officer at St. Jude. “We’re going to be able to look at cancer in a way we’ve never been able to do. It will be like going from a pair of glasses to a microscope.”
The privately funded project will complement the Cancer Genome Atlas, an eight-year National Institutes of Health initiative focusing largely on adult malignancies, says NIH director Francis Collins, who notes that pediatric and adult tumors may have mostly different genetic roots.
(more…)
A New Way to Look for Diseases’ Genetic Roots
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: January 25, 2010
The hunt for the genetic roots of common diseases has hit a blank wall.
The genetic variants found so far account in most cases for a small fraction of the genetic risk of the major killers. So where is the missing heritability and why has it not showed up?
A Duke geneticist now suggests that the standard method of gene hunting had a theoretical flaw and should proceed on a different basis. The purpose of the $3 billion project to decode the human genome, completed in 2003, was to discover the genetic roots of common diseases like diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s. The diseases are called complex, meaning that several mutated genes are probably implicated in each.
(more…)