Fitness J, Tosh K, Hill A V S
Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford, UK.
Genes Immun. 2002 Dec;3(8):441-53. doi: 10.1038/sj.gene.6363926.
The ancient disease of leprosy can cause severe disability and disfigurement and is still a major health concern in many parts of the world. Only a subset of those individuals exposed to the pathogen will go on to develop clinical disease and there is a broad clinical spectrum amongst leprosy sufferers. The outcome of infection is in part due to host genes that influence control of the initial infection and the host's immune response to that infection. Identification of the host genes that influence host susceptibility/resistance will enable a greater understanding of disease pathogenesis. In turn, this should facilitate development of more effective therapeutics and vaccines. So far at least a dozen genes have been implicated in leprosy susceptibility and a genome-wide linkage study has lead to the identification of at least one positional candidate. These findings are reviewed here.
古老的麻风病可导致严重残疾和毁容，在世界许多地区仍是主要的健康问题。只有一部分接触该病原体的个体才会发展为临床疾病，麻风病患者的临床症状范围广泛。感染的结果部分归因于宿主基因，这些基因影响初始感染的控制以及宿主对该感染的免疫反应。鉴定影响宿主易感性/抵抗力的宿主基因将有助于更深入地了解疾病发病机制。反过来，这应该有助于开发更有效的治疗方法和疫苗。到目前为止，至少有十几个基因与麻风病易感性有关，一项全基因组连锁研究已导致至少鉴定出一个定位候选基因。本文对这些发现进行了综述。
