NEW YORK: Researchers have identified 41 genes that may cause gum disease, a vital step towards developing compounds that can be used in targeted, individualised treatment to prevent loss of teeth and supportive bone.
The study by researchers at Columbia University in the US is the first of its kind to employ genome-wide reverse engineering to identify the gene pathways that contribute to gum disease, also known as periodontal disease.
Identification of the genes represents a vital step towards developing compounds that can be used in targeted, individualised treatment of severe periodontitis, before loss of teeth and supportive bone occurs, researchers said.
In gene expression studies, investigators find those genes that are most commonly expressed in either healthy or diseased tissue.
However, such studies cannot identify a causal link between these genes and the disease, and often miss genes that affect a larger number of genetic pathways, which may have a large impact on the disease process.
In the new study, researchers “reverse-engineered” the gene expression data to build a map of the genetic interactions that lead to periodontitis and identify individual genes that appear to have the most influence on the disease.
“Our approach narrows down the list of potentially interesting regulatory genes involved in periodontitis,” said Panos N Papapanou, professor at Columbia University Medical Centre (CUMC).
“This allows us to focus on the handful of genes that represent the most important players in the process rather than the whole transcriptome,” he said. (AGENCIES)
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