An in-depth study of genes involved with the susceptibility and the severity of meningococcal disease in children

Current research

• Imperial College, London, UK
• Researchers: Dr David Inwald, Professor Mike Levin
• Start Date: 11 August 2011
• Type: Lay summary
• View scientific version

What is this project about?

There is now clear evidence that genetic factors determine why some people get meningococcal disease and others do not and also that genetic factors determine the outcome of the infection. However, this evidence comes from studies involving small patient numbers and focused on only a few genes.

Now, after over a decade of work, we have assembled a very large genetic library from patients with meningococcal disease and appropriate ‘controls’ (healthy patients who did not get meningococcal disease) for comparison. A Meningitis Research Foundation funded programme of genetic research on meningococcal disease based at Imperial College has enabled us to collect samples from patients both from St Mary’s Hospital and from MRF members throughout the UK. Additional UK collections as well as European collections have been established through our international meningococcal disease genetics consortium, so that our genetic library includes about 1500 meningococcal samples and 6000 healthy controls.

We have recently undertaken a study using this very large genetic library and have produced very strong, reproducible information that we will use for the exploration of genes involved in susceptibility and outcome of the disease. In this application, we plan to undertake further analysis of this data using novel ‘bioinformatic’ methods (finding patterns and associations in the genetics using computing). From these results, we ultimately aim to explore the biological and functional role of the genes.

Why is this important?

Although genetic studies have provided important clues to the pathways determining susceptibility and outcome of meningococcal disease, they have mainly been undertaken on relatively small numbers of patients and most have not yet been reproduced in larger studies. There has been increasing awareness that genetic studies should involve larger numbers of patients in order to deliver reliable discoveries.

The recent development of high-throughput methods for whole genome gene scanning, together with computing methods for analyzing and interpreting the information these studies yield, now offer powerful new tools for undertaking such very large genetic studies.

Potential outcomes

The study will help us to understand the disease in order to develop new therapies and to help identify those who are at risk and those who will develop the most severe disease.