Fc gamma receptor gene variants associated with rheumatoid arthritis

People with a specific combination of variants of two genes, encoding two different receptors for the antibody Fc gamma, are three times more likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than individuals with different variant combinations. A study published today in the journal Arthritis Research & Therapy confirms previous findings of an association between the Fc gamma Receptor (FCGR) gene family and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The study shows that a specific variant combination of two FCGR genes on chromosome one, a FCGR3A-FCGR3B haplotype, makes people more susceptible to RA.

Ann Morgan, from the University of Leeds, and colleagues from other institutions in the UK studied the frequency of various FCGR haplotypes in a group of UK Caucasians (147 RA patients and 127 healthy individuals acting as controls). Dr Morgan is an Arthritis Research Campaign ‘Clinician Scientist Fellow’.

One specific FCGR3A-FCGR3B haplotype was found in 31% of RA patients and in 37% of RA patients with a more severe type of RA characterised by lumps around the joints, or nodules. Individuals with 2 copies of this haplotype (homozygous) are three times more likely to develop RA. Homozygous individuals who also have certain variants of human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DRB1 alleles encoding the ‘shared epitope’ protein sequence (SE positive), a known risk factor for RA, have a 10 times higher risk of developing RA than SE negative individuals with other FCGR3 variants.

The Fc gamma receptors play important roles in the initiation and regulation of many immunological and inflammatory processes. They also have the ability to bind RA-associated antibodies. This might explain their role in RA pathogenesis.

Media Contact

Juliette Savin alfa

More Information:

http://www.biomedcentral.com

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Multiple Sclerosis: Early Warnings in the Immune System

LMU researchers demonstrate that certain immune cells already play an important role in the early stages of multiple sclerosis. The researchers compared the CD8 T cells of monozygotic twin pairs,…

Quantum communication: using microwaves to efficiently control diamond qubits

Major breakthrough for the development of diamond-based quantum computers. Quantum computers and quantum communication are pioneering technologies for data processing and transmission that is much faster and more secure than…

Logic with light

Introducing diffraction casting, optical-based parallel computing. Increasingly complex applications such as artificial intelligence require ever more powerful and power-hungry computers to run. Optical computing is a proposed solution to increase…

Partners & Sponsors