Genetic susceptibility to multifactorial diseases

Complex Multifactorial Genetic Diseases

A trait is often of interest by virtue of being either highly desirable, for example intelligence, or highly undesirable, for example cancer. Genetic influence over the trait can be established inmanyways including twin studies, clustering statistics and statistical modelling. Once the existence of a genetic component has been established, the next step is to locate the genes involved. The ease...

Clinical issues in genetic testing for multifactorial diseases.

A Statistical Model for Assessing Genetic Susceptibility as a Risk Factor in Multifactorial Diseases: Lessons from Occupational Asthma

BACKGROUND Incorporating the influence of genetic variation in the risk assessment process is often considered, but no generalized approach exists. Many common human diseases such as asthma, cancer, and cardiovascular disease are complex in nature, as they are influenced variably by environmental, physiologic, and genetic factors. The genetic components most responsible for differences in indiv...

Genetic Control of Immune Response and Susceptibility to Infectious Diseases

1 Department of Biotechnology, Center for Biosciences and Biotechnology, State University of Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro, 28013-602 Campos dos Goytacazes, RJ, Brazil 2 Emory Vaccine Center, Yerkes National, Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30329, USA 3 Laboratory of Immunogenetics, Department of Immunology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, 0550...

Genetic Susceptibility to Prion Diseases in Humans and Mice

Prion diseases are fatal transmissible neurodegenerative disorders of both animals and humans associated with prolonged incubation periods and include scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). The arrival of variant CJD (vCJD) and the recognition that it is causally related to BSE, to which there has been widespread dietary exposure, has lead to consid...