Genetic hope for migraines

31 August 2010

PARIS: Gene detectives say they have found the first inherited link to common types of migraine, a finding that boosts hopes for new drugs to curb this painful and costly disorder.

Scientists from 40 medical centres pored over the genetic profiles of more than 50,000 people, comparing those who suffered badly from migraines with others who were otherwise healthy.

What came up in the net was a tiny but telltale variant of DNA that boosts the risk of getting migraines by about a fifth.

"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," Aarno Palotie, head of the International Headache Genetics Consortium at Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, which led the study, said yesterday.

The tiny genetic variant, or allele, is called rs1835740, which allows a messenger chemical, glutamate, to accumulate in junctions between brain cells. Scientists believe this unleashes the migraine. If so, drug engineers have a tempting target in preventing glutamate build-up.