Human Genetic Variation Alters Anthrax Toxin Sensitivity
Martchenko, Candille et al., PNAS
Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine show that genetic variation affecting capillary morphogenesis gene 2, or CMG2, dramatically alters toxin sensitivity in humans. In its analysis, the team reports on "a CMG2 single-nucleotide polymorphism occurring frequently in African and European populations [that they found] independently altered toxin uptake." The group goes on to suggest "testing of genomically characterized human cell populations may offer a broadly useful strategy for elucidating effects of genetic variation on infectious disease susceptibility."
Deletions and Obesity
December 07, 2009
British researchers report that a 16p11.2 deletion is associated with severe early-onset obesity. That deletion, as they say in Nature, includes the SH2B1 gene that is involved in leptin and insulin signaling. "This is the first evidence that copy number variants have been linked to a metabolic condition such as obesity," the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute's Matt Hurles says in the UK's Telegraph. The Telegraph story also notes that some children in the study had been placed on the "at risk register because of fears they were being overfed" and have since been removed from the list.