Featured Thoughts, News and Microarticles from the Scientific Community.

A recent Nature letters paper by Ge et al examines the discovery of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in and around the IL28B gene, that correlates with clearance of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) after treatment. The IL28B gene encodes IFN-3, similar in activity to IFN-, the same cytokine currently used for treatment of HCV. The genetic lesion was identified from examination of two independent Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) by Suppiah et al and Tanaka et al, covering 1,137 patients infected with HCV. The advantageous variant of the allele allowed clearance of the virus in 80% of patients after treatment with IFN. The paper also discussed the natural variation of the allele with 90% of chinese and japanese people carrying the advantageous allele - compared with only 30-50% of sub-saharan africans carrying the allele. The paper summarizes a clear study of freely available patient data and identifies a gene clearly implicated in the clearance of HCV from the body following treatment (and potentially before treatment).

In an interesting twist, Michael Katze and Shawn Iadonato discuss the result in the News and Views article in the same issue of Nature. They comment on the usefulness of data collected in this way and the application of the results to research resulting in treatments. They cite the disease of Cystic Fibrosis as an example, where researchers have known for 20 years that a mutation on the CFTR gene is the sole cause of the disease. Even after twenty years of research, no suitable treatment option has been released based upon this knowledge. The two new drug treatments soon available did not rely on research involving this genetic mutation, yet show more promise than the failed gene delivery experiments resulting in Leukemia. They highlight the inefficiency of genetics as a tool for drug discovery.

Despite this gloomy outlook, scientists remain hopeful that genetic discoveries such as this will provide a tool for new research hopefully resulting in new clinical treatment options.

Original Article:

Genetic variation in IL28B predicts hepatitis C treatment-induced viral clearance

Dongliang Ge, Jacques Fellay, Alexander J. Thompson, Jason S. Simon, Kevin V. Shianna, Thomas J. Urban, Erin L. Heinzen, Ping Qiu, Arthur H. Bertelsen, Andrew J. Muir, Mark Sulkowski, John G. McHutchison & David B. Goldstein

Nature 461, 399-401 (17 September 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature08309;

News and Views:

Genomics: Hepatitis C virus gets personal

Shawn P. Iadonato & Michael G. Katze