MAPPING SUSCEPTIBILITY LOCI IN INFLAMMATORY BOWEL-DISEASE - WHY AND HOW

The cause sf the inflammatory bowel diseases Crohn's disease and ulcer ative colitis is unknown, but epidemiological evidence suggests that i t is multifactorial with a strong genetic component. Several genetic l oci probably contribute to disease susceptibility, accounting for the complex pattern of of inheritance and heterogeneous clinical manifesta tions, The combination of candidate gene studies and, more recently, g enome-wide searches has resulted in the identification of a number of putative susceptibility loci. With large-scale, fine-mapping studies u nder way, and accelerating progress in the physical mapping of the hum an genome, rapid progress is now being made towards the identification of the genes responsible far inflammatory bowel disease.