Genetics of susceptibility to leprosy
Open Access
- 1 December 2002
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Genes & Immunity
- Vol. 3 (8), 441-453
- https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.gene.6363926
Abstract
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.This publication has 160 references indexed in Scilit:
- Genetic susceptibility to tuberculosis in Africans: A genome-wide scanProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2000
- Co-evolution of rat TAP transporters and MHC class I RT1-A moleculesCurrent Biology, 1998
- Vitamin D Receptor: No Evidence for Allele-Specific mRNA Stability in Cells Which Are Heterozygous for the Taq I Restriction Enzyme PolymorphismBiochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 1997
- The Nramp1 antimicrobial resistance gene segregates independently of resistance to virulent Mycobacterium tuberculosisImmunology, 1996
- Genetic dissection of complex traits: guidelines for interpreting and reporting linkage resultsNature Genetics, 1995
- Do human leukocyte antigens have a role to play in differential manifestation of multibacillary leprosy: A study on multibacillary leprosy patients from North IndiaTissue Antigens, 1992
- Analysis of HLA-DR2-associated polymorphisms by oligonucleotide hybridization in an Asian Indian populationHuman Immunology, 1991
- Lsh, Antigen presentation and the development of CMIResearch in Immunology, 1989
- HLA-DR-associated genetic control of the type of leprosy in a population from SurinamHuman Immunology, 1982
- Analysis of the Immunogenetic Background of Japanese Leprosy Patients by the HLA SystemVox Sanguinis, 1982