Angela Christiano, Ph.D. is one of several people involved in a comprehensive genetic analysis of people with alopecia areata. She is doing a genome-wide scan, looking at all the genes that comprise human beings, in a collection of families that have many family members with alopecia areata. She hopes these studies will lead to the identification of the many genes that make people more susceptible to alopecia areata. Then we can begin to understand how these genes interact with each other and ultimately how they may lead to the cause or the cure of alopecia areata. The susceptibility genes are probably affecting individual components of the hair follicle. They may affect one component or they may affect more than one component, and so we have to study the individual components sometimes to pin down what the susceptibility genes are doing.

NAAF-funded research has also identified two specific chromosomes that may be linked to an individual’s susceptibility to alopecia areata. For many years, Angela Christiano, Ph.D. has conducted genome-wide searches for linkage from sibling pairs enrolled in the National Alopecia Areata Registry. To maximize the outcome of her gene-mapping, she has focused her initial efforts on the pedigrees of individuals from families where three or more members are affected with alopecia areata. She has already completed 22 pedigrees, and she has started to see spikes in the areas of certain chromosomes.

The exciting news is that the locus on chromosome 10 identified in the analysis of alopecia areata in the first panel of families overlaps the locus on chromosome 10 obtained in the second and third panel of families. And the locus identified on chromosome 6 in the second and third panels of pedigrees overlaps with one of the loci identified in a genome wide scan done previously on the mouse model for alopecia areata.

These results represent the first significant evidence of genetic susceptibility for alopecia areata in humans as identified in a whole genome analysis! In particular, due to the fact that certain chromosomes appear among the top scores for at least three of the four tests performed, these results pinpoint regions on various chromosomes that might harbor alopecia areata susceptibility genes.

Christiano continues her studies and will monitor chromosomes 6 and 10.

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