Mike Clark wrote:
> It is quite clear that most autoimmune conditions are under polygenic
> control.
Hey, I go away for 3 weeks and all the interesting discussion on Danger
has been and gone. Just to try and rekindle interest from the dying
embers, Are you sure about the polygenic argument for autoimmune
diseases Mike? I went to a recent talk on cytokine polymorphisms in
malaria, and was struck by how these various cytokine polymorphisms
change the phenotype of malaria dramatically (eg from blackwater fever
to cerebral malaria, to chronic relapsing forms). It struck me that if
you looked at malaria without knowing the underlying cause it would look
for all the world like a polygenic disease, yet we know that there is
only one underlying cause: the malaria parasite.
Derek Gray
