The Rheumatologist
COVID-19 NewsACR Convergence
  • Connect with us:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • Feed
  • Home
  • Conditions
    • Rheumatoid Arthritis
    • SLE (Lupus)
    • Crystal Arthritis
      • Gout Resource Center
    • Spondyloarthritis
    • Osteoarthritis
    • Soft Tissue Pain
    • Scleroderma
    • Vasculitis
    • Systemic Inflammatory Syndromes
    • Guidelines
  • Resource Centers
    • Axial Spondyloarthritis Resource Center
    • Gout Resource Center
    • Psoriatic Arthritis Resource Center
    • Rheumatoid Arthritis Resource Center
    • Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Resource Center
  • Drug Updates
    • Biologics & Biosimilars
    • DMARDs & Immunosuppressives
    • Topical Drugs
    • Analgesics
    • Safety
    • Pharma Co. News
  • Professional Topics
    • Ethics
    • Legal
    • Legislation & Advocacy
    • Career Development
      • Certification
      • Education & Training
    • Awards
    • Profiles
    • President’s Perspective
    • Rheuminations
    • Interprofessional Perspective
  • Practice Management
    • Billing/Coding
    • Quality Assurance/Improvement
    • Workforce
    • Facility
    • Patient Perspective
    • Electronic Health Records
    • Apps
    • Information Technology
    • From the College
    • Multimedia
      • Audio
      • Video
  • Resources
    • Issue Archives
    • ACR Convergence
      • Gout Resource Center
      • Axial Spondyloarthritis Resource Center
      • Psoriatic Arthritis
      • Abstracts
      • Meeting Reports
      • ACR Convergence Home
    • American College of Rheumatology
    • ACR ExamRheum
    • Research Reviews
    • ACR Journals
      • Arthritis & Rheumatology
      • Arthritis Care & Research
      • ACR Open Rheumatology
    • Rheumatology Image Library
    • Treatment Guidelines
    • Rheumatology Research Foundation
    • Events
  • About Us
    • Mission/Vision
    • Meet the Authors
    • Meet the Editors
    • Contribute to The Rheumatologist
    • Subscription
    • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Search
You are here: Home / Articles / Gene Mutation Could Cause Gut Microbe Changes that Lead to RA

Gene Mutation Could Cause Gut Microbe Changes that Lead to RA

July 31, 2012 • By David Holzman

  • Tweet
  • Email
Print-Friendly Version / Save PDF

Over the last several years, the evidence has been mounting that our commensal gastrointestinal microflora are far more than simply benign inhabitants of our alimentary canal. “A lot of noninfectious human disease is associated with abnormalities of the gut microbiota,” Jeremy Nicholson, MD, chair in biological chemistry and head of the department of surgery and cancer at Imperial College in London, U.K., told a symposium at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, mentioning gastric ulcers, colon and other cancers, several autoimmune diseases, and type 2 diabetes, among other diseases. “We’re less than 1% human in terms of active genes in the body,” he said, explaining the influence of our microbiome’s genetics on our health.

You Might Also Like
  • Gut Microbe, Prevotella copri, Implicated in RA Pathogenesis
  • Study Assesses the Role of Genetics & the Gut in Reactive Arthritis
  • Oral & Gut Microbiomes Altered in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients
Also By This Author
  • Medicare Quality Movement Reaches Clinicians

Now a new study suggests that a small abnormality in an immunity gene can alter the gut flora in a way that induces development of rheumatoid arthritis. The research was published in the PLoS ONE.

ad goes here:advert-1
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE

“Our working hypothesis was that host immune response genes affect the microbes we carry, and that this may alter the risk of arthritis development,” says principal investigator Veena Taneja, PhD, an immunologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “We developed transgenic mice that carry the human HLA genes, DRB1*0401 and DRB1*0402, known, respectively to predispose and to resist development of rheumatoid arthritis.” As with humans, she says, among the mouse models in her study, three times as many females as males among the susceptible cohort developed the disease.

The researchers collected fecal samples from both groups of mice at varying ages. They used high throughput sequencing technology (16s sequencing) to map the populations of bacteria in naive mice from both strains. “The guts of arthritis-susceptible mice were dominated by clostridium-like bacteria, and that was associated with a proinflammatory immune profile,” says Dr. Taneja. “Further, we found that mice carrying the arthritis-susceptible HLA gene lacked the dynamic change that occurs among the gut flora as the mice age, while the mice with the nonsusceptible gene showed that dynamic change.”

ad goes here:advert-2
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE

The study, the first to explore the murine microbiome in humanized mice, is potentially highly significant, says Martin Kriegel, MD, PhD, assistant professor of immunobiology and medicine at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. “Other commensals … have been shown to drive the autoimmune process in the spontaneous arthritis model called K/BxN,” he says. “Once the disease-associated commensals identified in this study have been proven to be causally related to arthritis development, the potential for translation of these findings to novel biomarkers, or even novel therapeutic approaches for rheumatoid arthritis, is likely greater than with nonhumanized mouse models.”

Pages: 1 2 | Single Page

Filed Under: Conditions, Research Reviews, Rheumatoid Arthritis Tagged With: gut microbe, RA, Rheumatoid arthritis

You Might Also Like:
  • Gut Microbe, Prevotella copri, Implicated in RA Pathogenesis
  • Study Assesses the Role of Genetics & the Gut in Reactive Arthritis
  • Oral & Gut Microbiomes Altered in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients
  • Gut Microbiota Directly Affects Inflammatory Arthritis

American College of Rheumatology

Visit the official website for the American College of Rheumatology.

Visit the ACR »

ACR Convergence

Don’t miss rheumatology’s premier scientific meeting for anyone involved in research or the delivery of rheumatologic care or services.

Visit the ACR Convergence site »

Simple Tasks

Learn more about the ACR’s public awareness campaign and how you can get involved. Help increase visibility of rheumatic diseases and decrease the number of people left untreated.

Visit the Simple Tasks site »

The Rheumatologist newsmagazine reports on issues and trends in the management and treatment of rheumatic diseases. The Rheumatologist reaches 11,500 rheumatologists, internists, orthopedic surgeons, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who practice, research, or teach in the field of rheumatology.

About Us / Contact Us / Advertise / Privacy Policy / Terms of Use / Cookie Preferences

  • Connect with us:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • Feed

Copyright © 2006–2023 American College of Rheumatology. All rights reserved.

ISSN 1931-3268 (print)
ISSN 1931-3209 (online)