British researchers have identified nine new genes implicated in osteoarthritis, it was announced last night.
Five of the genes could be novel targets for research into therapy because they differ “significantly” in their expression in healthy and diseased tissue, the researchers say.
The findings come from an analysis of the UK Biobank. Researchers found 30,000 people with osteoarthritis and compared them with nearly 300,000 people without the disease.
The researchers analysed some 16.5 million DNA variants for the study, reported in Nature Genetics.
The researchers said they ruled out a link between osteoarthritis and hyperlipidaemia and type 2 diabetes. But there was a strong link with obesity.
Researcher Professor Eleftheria Zeggini, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK, said: “Osteoarthritis is challenging to study because the disease can vary among people, and also between the different joints affected, for example knee, hip, hand and spine.
“Using data from the UK Biobank resource, we have undertaken the largest genetic study of osteoarthritis to date and uncovered nine new genes associated with the disease.”
Fellow researcher Ms Eleni Zengini, from the University of Sheffield and Dromokaiteio Psychiatric Hospital in Athens, said: “These results are an important step towards understanding the genetic causes of osteoarthritis and take us closer to uncovering the mechanism behind the disease. Once we know that, it opens the door to developing new therapies for this debilitating disease.”
Eleni Zengini et al Nature Genetics. Genome-wide analyses using UK Biobank data provide insights into the genetic architecture of osteoarthritis. 19 March 2018; doi: 10.1038/s41588-018-0079-y
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