Objective
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a complex, polygenic disorder, which affects mainly young adults. Genetic linkage to susceptibility areas on chromosomes16, 6 and 12 has been confirmed in affected sib pair studies. The life-style of modern industrialised civilisations appears to be a strong trigger for disease manifestation. The applicants use their well-characterised collection of multiplex and monoplex families to identify the genes by systematic association studies utilising polymorphisms of genes in linkage regions. Gene-chip based expression screening (using acDNA array with 38,000 clustered ESTs, which is proprietary to the applicants) will be used to understand the function of known and novel genes in disease pathophysiology. Proteomics approaches are taken to understand the function of differentially expressed genes and for a systematic post expression analysis. Through a complex genotype-phenotype analysis the applicability of molecular findings to the population will be defined. This will result in a validation of molecular abnormalities as novel targets for therapy and/or as screening tools. Extensive statistical and epidemiological analysis will develop a disease model describe the interaction between multiple genetic and life style factors. The proposal will therefore produce exploitable intellectual property resulting in a substantial improvement...
Funding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
24105 Kiel
Germany
Participants (5)
51375 Leverkusen
SE1 9RT London
14195 Berlin
2200 Koepenhagen
5230 Odense
