Scientists developed promising leads in tracing the genetic roots of Lou Gehrig?s disease using state-of-the-art biochip technology.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University identified 34 possible genetic leads, which may help future researchers develop therapies for the degenerative nerve disease formally called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Some of those links could be coincidence, and a second study is in the works to refine them, said Dr. Bryan Traynor, co-investigator in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Department of Neurology.
“Although we haven?t located the exact gene responsible for sporadic ALS, our results seriously narrow the search and bring us that much closer to finding what we need to start developing treatments for the disease,” he said. “I hope to at the end of the day be able to walk away with a few genes I can say are definitively linked with ALS.”
The disease attacks nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord, leading to paralysis and death, according to the ALS Association, which helped fund the study. Although late-stage patients may become paralyzed, their minds remain unaffected.
Researchers used biochips to analyze the entire genome of 276 adult male and female subjects with sporadic ALS and 271 adult male and female subjects with no trace of neurological disease. Their work was published this week in the online version of Lancet Neurology.
At least five genes responsible for inherited forms of ALS ? 5 percent of all cases ? have been known since the 1990s. Until this study, no genetic roots were identified for sporadic ALS, which occurs in people without a family history of the disease.
The large volume of possible genetic culprits has a lot to do with the advanced technology returning more results than conventional genetic typing, Traynor said.
