Riken Discovers One of Herniated Lumbar Disk-Causing Genes

Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Article Date: 09 May 2005 - 0:00 PDT

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Tokyo (JCNN) - Riken has announced that its SNP Research Center has discovered one of the genes that cause a herniated lumbar disk. The Center has confirmed a high expression of cartilage intermediate layer protein (CLIP) in patients with herniated lumbar disks. Further, the research indicates that the risk of developing a herniated disk is 1.6 times higher when patients have single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) with CLIP.

This is the first time that the cause and pathologic condition of herniated disks have been elucidated at the gene and protein level.

RIKEN expects that this achievement will contribute to the development of drugs and treatments for herniated disks, lumbar pain and sciatica. Detailed research results are available online on the website of US scientific magazine Nature Genetics.

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