Monday, March 17, 2008 | Reason : In the News | print version

Immune system differences found

by BBC News

Thanks to Geoff for the link.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7270562.stm

Immune system differences found

Researchers have found population differences in the behaviour of immune system genes - potentially affecting how people respond to infection.

The Chicago University team looked at over 9,000 genes in 180 people, half Caucasian and half from Nigeria.

They found differences between the two races in 5% of key genes.

The American Journal of Human Genetics study may help explain why some groups are more vulnerable to disease, and aid development of more tailored treatment.

Gum disease

The researchers used gene chip array technology, which uses a microscope to analyse a specialised slide capable of containing thousands of genes derived from blood cells.

Sixty nuclear families, each including a mother, a father and a child were studied. Thirty were from Utah in the US, while the rest were Yorubans from Ibadan, Nigeria.

The researchers looked at expression levels - how active a gene is.

They found significant differences, particularly in immune system genes involved in producing antibodies to combat bacterial infection.

This backs up previous work which has shown African Americans may be more susceptible than Caucasians to infection, such as the gum disease bug Porphyromonas gingivalis.

The US study also found activity levels varied significantly in genes involved in basic cellular processes which are thought to play a part in how the body responds to drugs, including the risk of side effects.

'Small and subtle'

Professor Eileen Dolan, who led the research, said: "Our primary interest is the genes that regulate how people respond to medicines, such as cancer chemotherapy.

"We want to understand why different populations experience different degrees of toxicity when taking certain drugs and learn how to predict who might be most at risk for drug side effects."

She added: "Population differences in gene expression have only recently begun to be investigated.

"We believe they play a significant role in susceptibility to disease and in regulating drug response.

"Our current research focuses on how these genetic and expression differences play a role in sensitivity to adverse effects associated with chemotherapy."

Dr Chris Tyler-Smith, a geneticist at the Wellcome Trust's Sanger Institute, said genetic differences between ethnic groups were "small and subtle".

"They usually just consist of slight differences in frequency of a few variants found in all populations. But they are important for our understanding of recent evolution and can have medical implications as well.

"They have been difficult to identify, and it is particularly interesting to see that characteristics like variation in susceptibility to infection are showing up."

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1. Comment #145003 by bugaboo on March 17, 2008 at 6:57 am

We've known for years that there are differences in immune system genes (HLA eg)and that susceptibilty to infectious agents can vary among different groups of people eg HIV infection in certain areas in West Africa. This is evolution in action ( the fact that there are differences in these genes-selected for by the pressures of various regional infections)Pharmacogenetics will play a key role in tailoring to the specific medical needs of people in the future.

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2. Comment #145007 by DamnDirtyApe on March 17, 2008 at 7:01 am

This sounds similar to genetic alcohol tolerance. Its certainly shows we're still evolving. Now, bring me my beer! I don't care if its only 2 in the afternoon! on a monday!

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3. Comment #145011 by Geoff on March 17, 2008 at 7:08 am

Has Josh been on holiday? I submitted this weeks ago.

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4. Comment #145016 by BillySands on March 17, 2008 at 7:15 am

This backs up previous work which has shown African Americans may be more susceptible than Caucasians to infection, such as the gum disease bug Porphyromonas gingivalis.

Lets not forget that native americans were more susceptible to small pox than christian European conquerors too

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5. Comment #145150 by Richard Feldmann on March 17, 2008 at 10:09 am

The Chicago University team looked at over 9,000 genes in 180 people, half Caucasian and half from Nigeria.

*start sarcasm*

I didn't know there was a country called Caucasia.

*end sarcasm*

Sometimes I hate political correctness.

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6. Comment #145158 by obscured by clouds on March 17, 2008 at 10:19 am

Has Josh been on holiday? I submitted this weeks ago.

Did you resend it, we got it yesterday.

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7. Comment #145203 by Zaphod on March 17, 2008 at 11:10 am

Is this new?

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8. Comment #145324 by Azven on March 17, 2008 at 1:33 pm

Wow! Populations that have been exposed to different bacterial environments for centuries show differences in their immune systems.

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9. Comment #145399 by hoops mccann on March 17, 2008 at 2:37 pm

"I didn't know there was a country called Caucasia."

Isn't that the place where they have caucuses?

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10. Comment #145489 by Big T on March 17, 2008 at 4:41 pm

DamnDirtyApe: It may be Monday, and early in the day, but let's not forget this particular Monday is St Patrick's Day.

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11. Comment #145498 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 17, 2008 at 4:49 pm

This is the kind of thing the BNP use to justify their racism

"We do not accept the absurd superstition propagated for different though sometimes overlapping reasons by capitalists, liberals, Marxists and theologians - of human equality. ...This must not be taken to mean or imply that we believe that any particular ethnic group or race is 'superior' or 'inferior'; we simply recognise that as any biologist would be able to predict, and the new medical science of pharmacogenetics is now confirming human populations which have undergone micro-evolutionary changes while being separated for many thousands of years have developed differences in many fields of endeavour, susceptibility to health problems, behavioural tendencies and such like."
British National Party: Rebuilding British Democracy general election manifesto 2005, p. 17

They are wrong about behavioural tendencies as far as we can tell thank god. I'm still unsure though that this research actually means anything. Is not race just too meaningless to allow this kind of pronouncement?

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12. Comment #145609 by the_ultimate_samurai on March 17, 2008 at 7:27 pm

no more meaningless than many of the other taxonomic sepperation it seems. (see the ancestor tale perhaps for some of the blurring of line in what realy makes a species...)
taxonomy is just becoming more difficult...esspecialy when you go to the genetic level.

as for race, or perhaps more keenly ethnicity, it is important to be aware of physiological differeces...medicine depends on knowing a lot about the physiology of the patent and cant afford to be PC at the expense of the patient. as someone above mentioned, different people, in different points of the world exposed to different organisms for different periods of time are neccesaraly going to be different...the key to understanding to what degree to best handle drug and health regiments for them.

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13. Comment #145631 by aporeticus on March 17, 2008 at 8:35 pm

I once shared an office with a Caucasian graduate student. He was from Georgia, and he had moved all the way to Georgia. He wanted to open a Georgian Caucasian restaurant just to see the reaction.

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14. Comment #145660 by Saerain on March 17, 2008 at 11:53 pm

There are no Murkies crying 'omfg racism amirite' yet? Impressive.

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15. Comment #145860 by the izz on March 18, 2008 at 8:30 am

It should also be noted that any US population juxtaposed with a population from a single African country would have a comparatively wide difference genetics. This is because the some of the most genetic diversity is found in Africa and because the American population has had much greater opportunities for genetic mixing. If you compared a random sample of Americans to each other you would probably find less difference in immune systems.

That being said, this research seems to justify Jared Diamond's claims in Guns, Germs, and Steel that much of the reason Europeans decimated the native populations of the Americas and not the other way around is because Europeans had evolved immunities to many diseases they initially got from their livestock. The native populations did not have immunities to European disease and didn't have as many diseases that could hurt Europeans because they had less livestock and didn't live with them in close quarters the way Europeans did and consequently less illnesses of animal origin.

Interesting stuff. I eagerly await the time when I can get a drug treatment regiment based on my personal genetic immunities.

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16. Comment #146193 by MaxD on March 18, 2008 at 6:18 pm

ThoughtsonCommonToad said:

They will have to work hard to make the obvious and statistically significant differences in health outcomes among ethnic/racial groups work to further some racist ends. Many native-americans seemed to have a higher resistance to syphallis, people not descended from pastoral peoples cannot easily deal with lactose, people of african american descent seem to suffer (under american diets at least) much great risk of early onset high blood pressure. Caucasians seem to suffer heart disease more readily. Tay-Sachs is a disease that my kids have almost no chance of getting unless I have sex with a jew.
Human groups have endured long periods of evolution where genetic mixing with neighbors wasn't happening. Groups then diverged in ways that were selected by the ecologies in which they found themselves. Different genetic defects, and different genetic advantages accrued. Sometimes what appears to be a defect now, would not have been in the native environment. Sickle-cell anemia while is an extreme but good example. Cystic fibrosis may have a similar evolutionary story to tell.

Saying they are wrong about human behavioral tendencies may be getting a bit ahead of ourselves in the assurity department. The work is just begining to be done in earnest. For what it is worth, I imagine it will turn up very little. At least as regards intelligence there seems to be more variablity within a group than between groups. But so what if it does? We needn't hold individuals to some average of the groups they belong to or treat the groups differently because some would average lower at task x.

Clearly there are behavioral differences between the sexes (that have very little to do with culture though can be excacerbated or minimized by culture). So other differences are not out of the question though seem unlikely in any large way.

Race is not the discredited idea some would like it to be. Though it may mean less than once was thought. And in any event the research is not even in the slightest unexpected as such findings have been the norm already.

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17. Comment #146201 by Goldy on March 18, 2008 at 6:38 pm

Dunno - thought skin colour and sexual orientation were more important to their ideology. I found out I have a mutation on my CYP2C19 gene. Doesn't really do much - I probably can't metabolise omeprazole as well as a wild type. This mutation isn't that common in Europe. Why do I bring this up? It is quite a common mutation in the Pacific islands. By bad reasoning, I must be a Pacific Islander - but I am not. So it doesn't work too well on the race thing.

Race is not the discredited idea some would like it to be

Race as a concept is OK but the thinking that it engenders has made me not fully accept it. However, having read some of Oppenheimer's books (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/science/06brits.html?scp=10&sq=british origins&st=nyt) I know there have been long periods of isolation and that these are remarkably conserved in populations even now.

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18. Comment #146215 by MaxD on March 18, 2008 at 7:21 pm

It would be very bad reasoning indeed!

Goldy says:

Race as a concept is OK but the thinking that it engenders has made me not fully accept it.

Such a stance will always affect discussions of studies as innocuous as the one being cited here, as ThoughtsCommonToad has demonstrated.

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19. Comment #146221 by Goldy on March 18, 2008 at 7:35 pm

MaxD, indeed. Being in an interracial marriage, a lot of importance seems to be attached to the racial part of the marriage by some. This annoys me a bit as the cultural aspects are more divisive (if there are any arguments - me being phlegmatic to the point of comatose, I take the phrase "yes dear" to new levels :-)). And where does that leave my daughter?
That's why I'm not too enamoured with the word, though I will fully accept the concept.

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20. Comment #146489 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on March 19, 2008 at 6:18 am

MaxD I quoted from the BNP's 2005 Manifesto. This kind of research, more so its reporting, ignores the fact that defining races for humans is a complex business. Simplistic notions like African American, Hispanic, White etc are patently ridiculous. The human species has a continuum. Grouping people into races will essentially be arbitrary. Does anyone deny that populations differ in their genetic makeup, being exposed over thousands of years to different environments, breeding in a discrete gene pool? Well if you did you wouldn't be taken seriously. Any two neighboring settlements could show some genetic differentiation and could therefore be defined as a separate race.

Subdivisions such a White, Black, Asian etc are just going beyond being reasonable.

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