New genetic findings about eczema continue to highlight the role of the immune system in the disease, British researchers said last night.
A project, led in Bristol, UK, has identified ten new genetic variants linked to the disease, it was announced.
The discoveries bring the total number of variants associated with eczema to 31, the researchers say.
The findings, reported in Nature Genetics, come from an analysis of some 377,000 people who have been involved in a total of 40 research projects worldwide.
The researchers say the genetic discoveries still only represent a "small proportion" of the risk of developing the disease. They say that all the new discoveries are known to have a role in regulating the immune system.
Researcher Dr Lavinia Paternoster, from Bristol University, said: "Though the genetic variants identified in this current study represent only a small proportion of the risk for developing eczema (they are in no way deterministic, rather they slightly increase your risk), they do give new insights into important disease mechanisms and through on-going research in this area these findings could be turned into treatments of the future."
Fellow researcher Dr Sara Brown, from Dundee University, UK, said: "Eczema runs in families so we know that genetic factors are an important part of the cause. The very large numbers of participants in this research has allowed us to fine-tune our understanding of eczema genetic risk, providing more detail on how the skin immune system can go wrong in eczema."
Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of 21,000 cases and 95,000 controls identifies new risk loci for atopic dermatitis. Nature Genetics 19 October 2015 [abstract]
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