This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Study associates new gene with wet and dry AMD risk

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

A recent study has identified a new gene that may be associated with a patient's risk for developing both exudative and nonexudative age-related macular degeneration.

Kang Zhang, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City compared genotypes of 581 patients with AMD to genotypes of 309 people without AMD. The researchers found that patients who have a mutant copy of the gene HTRA1 have up to a 700% increased risk for developing AMD compared to those without the mutation, according to the study.

The results suggest that HTRA1 aids in the formation of soft confluent drusen in dry AMD and contributes to angiogenesis in wet AMD, Dr. Zhang said in a press release from the university.

"Several previous studies have implicated a major gene at chromosome 10q26 that affects the risk of AMD, but until this study the precise gene has not been identified," he said in the release.

The study is published in the October 19 online issue of Science.