Groundbreaking Genetic Study Reveals 26 Key Regions Linked to Fibromyalgia Risk, ETHealthworld
New Delhi: A study has identified genetic risk factors of developing fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition characterised by widespread pain and tenderness, fatigue, and problems with sleep, memory and mood.
Fibromyalgia is often dismissed as a ‘psychological’ pain, as biological causes for the condition are unclear.
Findings published in the journal Nature Medicine confirm that the condition has a clear biological basis, researchers said.
They identified DNA sequence variants in 26 regions of the human genome that affect one’s risk of developing fibromyalgia — many of the genes implicated in the regions are involved in brain and nerve function, the team said.
Data from 11 health research studies from the US, UK, Finland, Estonia, Denmark, and Iceland was analysed and 53 researchers across seven countries collaborated on the study.
“By studying the DNA of over two million individuals, we can be confident that the findings are real and they suggest that fibromyalgia represents a problem in pain processing,” co-senior author Frances Williams, professor of genomic epidemiology, King’s College London, said.
Co-senior author Michael Wainberg, an investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute and the University of Toronto in Canada, said, “This work changes how we think about fibromyalgia at a fundamental level. For decades, patients have been dismissed or told their pain is simply psychological. Our findings confirm the condition has a clear biological basis.”
Of the 26 genetic variants identified, the one most strongly linked to fibromyalgia risk was within the gene HTT — mutations in the gene can cause Huntington’s disease, a severe, progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disorder.
Another variant among the 26 pointed to a receptor called GPR52 that regulates HTT levels — the receptor is already being investigated as a possible drug target in Huntington’s disease, the researchers said.
The study also revealed a substantial genetic overlap between fibromyalgia and a range of other conditions, including low back pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Shared biological mechanisms within the nervous system may make people susceptible to several of these conditions, explaining why they often appear together, the researchers said.
“We know that chronic pain syndromes cluster together in individuals and families and are genetically similar. Targeting the shared mechanisms underlying them could potentially benefit a whole cluster of disorders,” Williams said.
Genetics are not the only determinant of whether someone develops fibromyalgia.
The authors added that even people carrying many fibromyalgia genetic variants require other risk factors, such as a painful arthritic condition, to trigger fibromyalgia syndrome.
“Understanding how genes, environmental exposures, and life events jointly contribute to the risk of fibromyalgia syndrome is critical,” co-senior author Nasa Sinnott-Armstrong, assistant professor at Fred Hutch Cancer Center, US, said.
Further research into what triggers fibromyalgia and corresponding changes in neural tissues will help understand what drives the chronic pain condition and how to treat it, Sinnott-Armstrong said.
