Study identifies new risk genes for rare lung disease

New gene variants that increase the risk of a rare and severe lung disease have been discovered by a Finnish-led international research group, the University of Helsinki announced on Friday, reported Xinhua.

The study discovered seven genetic risk factors for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

"Most of the risk genes we have now identified are completely new, and their function in the lung is unknown," said Juulia Partanen, Ph.D. researcher at the University of Helsinki and the main author of the study.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a severe scarring disease of the lungs for which there is currently no cure. Genetic studies of the disease are therefore particularly important in order to develop new treatments.

There is only a small number of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in Finland (around 1,000), meaning that international collaboration and pooling of data is crucial to research.

The study involved nearly 1.4 million people from around the world, including more than 11,000 patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, more than four times the number involved in the largest study to date.

"Genetics research has previously focused heavily on European populations," said Jukka Koskela, a clinical researcher at the University of Helsinki, adding that more research is required on a global level in order to identify further genetic risk factors for the disease.

The study also confirmed previous findings that there is a common genetic background for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and severe COVID-19 disease. A total of seven genetic risk factors for pulmonary fibrosis were also found to influence the risk of developing severe disease from coronavirus.

The results of the study were recently published in the journal Cell Genomics.