Dallas Scientists Make Gains in Lupus Research

Dallas, TX scientists have pinpointed genes in these creatures that trigger the disease, a debilitating illness in which the body’s immune system turns on itself, attacking organs, vessels, joints, and skin, says writer Sue Goetinck Ambrose.

“The researchers are checking to see if defects in the same genes cause similar problems in people, hoping to eventually come up with better medications for the condition,” she wrote. “Lupus, officially known as systemic lupus erythematosus, strikes primarily women and people of Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian descent.”

“It’s very important to tease apart the genes that are responsible,” said Diane Mathis, an immunologist at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, in a recent interview.

The cause of the disease is thought largely to be genetic, according to research.

People with the disease produce antibodies.

“Available treatments don’t target the true cause of the disease, which has remained a mystery,” said Dr. Edward Wakeland, an immunologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas who led one of two Dallas studies released this week on the topic. “We have also discovered another gene that can mask the effects of the first two.”

One study, which appears in last week’s issue of the journal Science, showed how a defective version of a gene known as Ly108 made mice susceptible to lupus, according to experts.

When it is functioning normally, the body destroys any immune system cells that, by chance, have started to produce antibodies against the body, according to one website.

In the other paper published last week, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a UT Southwestern team led by Wakeland report on a separate gene, Tir7.

The Dallas researchers’ discoveries, even though made in mice, are likely to shed light on the disease in people, according to one doctor.

Understanding the network of genes involved may also one day help doctors tailor lupus treatments to individual patients.

Other UT Southwestern scientists involved in the new research were Srividya Subramanian, Katalin Tus, Quan-Zhen Li, Andrew Wang, Xiang-Hong Tian, Jinchun Zhou, Chaoying Liang, Buy Bartov, Lisa McDaniel, Xin Zhou, Roger Schultz, Liunan Li, Mei Yan, Madhavi Bhaskarabhatla, Angela Mobley, Charles Nguyen, Jill Mooney, and John Schatzle.

A walkathon for lupus research will be held in Dallas Nov. 18th.