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Chromosome 6q25 is linked to susceptibility to leprosy in a Vietnamese population

Nature Genetics volume 33, pages 412–415 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Leprosy, a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae, affects an estimated 700,000 persons each year1. Clinically, leprosy can be categorized as paucibacillary or multibacillary disease2. These clinical forms develop in persons that are intrinsically susceptible to leprosy per se, that is, leprosy independent of its specific clinical manifestation3. We report here on a genome-wide search for loci controlling susceptibility to leprosy per se in a panel of 86 families including 205 siblings affected with leprosy from Southern Vietnam. Using model-free linkage analysis, we found significant evidence for a susceptibility gene on chromosome region 6q25 (maximum likelihood binomial (MLB) lod score 4.31; P = 5 × 10−6). We confirmed this by family-based association analysis in an independent panel of 208 Vietnamese leprosy simplex families. Of seven microsatellite markers underlying the linkage peak, alleles of two markers (D6S1035 and D6S305) showed strong evidence for association with leprosy (P = 6.7 × 10−4 and P = 5.9 × 10−5, respectively).

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Figure 1: Maximum likelihood multipoint lod scores of 20 microsatellite markers on chromosome region 6q.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all family members who participated in this study. This study was supported by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to E.S. The genotyping core at the Montreal Genome Centre is supported by the Canadian Genetic Diseases Network and Genome Québec. M.T.M. is supported by a graduate fellowship of the Brazilian Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior and Pontifica Universidade Católica do Paraná. A.A. and L.A. are supported in part by grants from Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale and Fondation Banque Nationale de Paris-Paribas. T.J.H. and E.S. are Canadian Institutes of Health Research Investigators.

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Author notes

  1. Marcelo T. Mira and Alexandre Alcaïs: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. McGill Centre for the Study of Host Resistance and Departments of Human Genetics, Medicine and Biochemistry, McGill University, 1650 Cedar Avenue, Montreal, H3G 1A4, PQ, Canada

    Marcelo T. Mira, Thomas J. Hudson & Erwin Schurr

  2. Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U550 Human Genetics of Infectious Disease, Necker Medical School, Université Paris 5, 156 rue de Vaugirard, Paris, France

    Alexandre Alcaïs & Laurent Abel

  3. Hospital for Dermato-Venereology, 2 Nguyen Thong Street District 3, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Nguyen Van Thuc, Vu Hong Thai, Nguyen Thu Huong & Nguyen Ngoc Ba

  4. Montreal Genome Centre, McGill University Health Centre, 1650 Cedar Avenue, Montreal, H3G 1A4, PQ, Canada

    Andrei Verner & Thomas J. Hudson

Authors
  1. Marcelo T. Mira
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Correspondence to Erwin Schurr.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Mira, M., Alcaïs, A., Van Thuc, N. et al. Chromosome 6q25 is linked to susceptibility to leprosy in a Vietnamese population. Nat Genet 33, 412–415 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng1096

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