Variants of nine genes induce a higher risk of developing Addison's disease
Variants of nine genes increase the risk of developing Addison's disease, a rare disease in which the immune system attacks the adrenal glands. That is according to the largest genetic study to date on patients with Addison's disease. The findings help increase knowledge about what causes the disease. The study was conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and Bergen University, Norway, and is published in the journal
Nature Communications.
"By studying the single largest collection of samples from patients with Addison's disease, we've been able to carry out the first genetic study of the disease that spans the entire human genome," says Daniel Eriksson, doctor and researcher in the experimental endocrinology group at the Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet, who has led the study with doctoral student Maribel Aranda and docent Sophie Bensing at the Swedish Addison Registry. "It shows that variants of nine genes, many of which are central to our immune system, induce a higher risk of developing the disease."