(JP) Researchers identify gene that causes type 1 diabetes

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Researchers identify gene that causes type 1 diabetes

 

Japanese researchers have identified a gene they

believe is responsible for causing a type of diabetes

that mainly afflicts babies and other young people,

according to the latest issue of the magazine Nature

Genetics released online Monday.

The research group, led by Chiba University professors

Susumu Seino and Norihide Yokoi, said in the journal

that if a rat has an abnormality in a gene known as

Cb1b, the animal tends to develop type 1 diabetes.

 

The group is now analyzing the same type of gene in

patients with the human version of type 1 diabetes to

see if the gene exhibits the same abnormality in one

of its bases.

 

If a similarity is observed, the finding would go a

long way toward the development of a new therapy to

treat patients suffering from diabetes, which leaves

them dependent on insulin.

 

Researchers have already identified a set of genetic

molecules, known as the major histocompatibility

complex, as the " susceptibility locus " for the

disease.

 

Kajuro Komeda, assistant professor at Tokyo Medical

University and a member of the group, developed rats

prone to type 1 diabetes, and the research group

subsequently identified a gene common to the rats that

went on to develop type 1 diabetes.

 

The researchers then compared the gene with that in

normal rats to find that only diabetes-afflicted rats

showed " nonsense mutation " in Cb1b, a kind of

ubiquitin-protein ligases, they said in the journal.

 

They also found that if normal Cb1b is introduced into

diabetes-prone rats, the rodents do not develop type 1

diabetes.

 

From these findings, the group concluded that Cb1b and

MHC work in combination to cause the disease.

 

Type 1 diabetes is believed to be an autoimmune

disease caused by the destruction of pancreatic cells

by a person's immune system.

 

The research group said that Cb1b plays a role in

suppressing the activity of immune cells and that an

abnormality in the gene activates the immune system,

causing type 1 diabetes.

 

The Japan Times: July 16, 2002

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