Genetic Link Found For Common Migraine
An international team of scientists has identified a genetic risk factor associated with common migraines for the first time and say the research could lead to new treatments in the prevention of migraine attacks.
Researchers studied the genetic data of 50,000 people from Finland, Germany and the Netherlands and found that patients with a certain DNA variant that affects regulation of a certain brain chemical have a greater risk of developing migraines.
The study suggests that a buildup of the chemical glutamate could play a role in how migraines form.
“This is the first time we have been able to peer into the genomes of many thousands of people and find genetic clues to understand common migraine,” said Aarno Palotie, chairman of the international headache genetics consortium at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Britain.
One in six women and one in twelve men are affected by migraines. Migraines are estimated to be the most expensive brain disorder to society in the European Union and the USA.
Migraines are very painful to the people who suffer from them, and it can also be a disabling and often life-long condition. The World Health Organization ranks it 19th among all causes of “years lived with disability,” and family life, social life and work capacity are negatively affected in almost all migraine sufferers.
While there are a number of prescription remedies available for migraine, including GlaxoSmithKline’s Imitrex, Pfizer’s Relpax and AstraZeneca’s Zomig, the root causes of the condition remain unknown.
In a study published in the journal Nature on Sunday, Palotie’s team said the particular migraine risk DNA variant they had identified was on chromosome 8 between two genes known as PGCP and MTDH/AEG-1.
The research showed that it appears to regulate levels of glutamate, which is a neurotransmitter that transports messages between nerve cells in the brain. It does this by altering the activity of MTDH/AEG-1 in cells, which regulates the activity of the EAAT2 gene — a protein that is responsible for clearing glutamate from brain synapses.
Previous studies have found links between EAAT2 and other neurological diseases, including epilepsy, schizophrenia and a various anxiety disorders.
“Until now, no genetic link has been identified to suggest that glutamate accumulation in the brain could play a role in common migraine,” Christian Kubisch of University of Ulm in Germany, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
“This research opens the door for new studies to look in depth at the biology of the disease and how this alteration in particular may exert its effect,” Kubisch said.
Further research into the DNA variant is needed to find out more about how migraines occur, said the researchers. Further work is also needed to search for other possible genetic links, they said.
Reference: Anttila, V et al. (2010) Genome-wide association study of migraine implicates a common susceptibility variant on 8q22.1. Nature Genetics.
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