How Using DNA Banks Can Improve Autoimmune Disease Treatment

A neurologist and autoimmune expert at UT Southwestern shares insight into using large biobanks to understand and treat this rare autoimmune disease.

There are a lot of different types of autoimmune diseases and different risk factors for developing each one. While many of the risks are environmental, two people can be exposed to the same potential trigger and only one develops autoimmunity.

Benjamin Greenberg, MD, a neurologist and autoimmune expert with UT Southwestern’s O’Donnell Brain Institute, says the reason for this can be genetic, which is why analyzing DNA banks can be an important factor in understanding and treating these diseases. 

“Using large biobanks, where people have consented for genetic research, we are able to seek out which genes are risk factors for autoimmune diseases and simultaneously better understand the biology of the conditions,” he says. “This understanding can be used to develop new treatment options.”

Greenberg recently led a UT Southwestern study that is believed to be the largest full DNA analysis of a rare disease.

Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the optic nerve and spinal cord, leaving some patients blind and paralyzed. It can be treated with medications and physical rehabilitation, though it is often misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis in its early stages.

The study, published in Nature Communications in May, examined 215 patients with NMO through 1,244 controls, and was used to show the potential of utilizing large DNA banks to better understand and treat other rare diseases. The pool of patients had their genome fully sequenced and the researchers identified a gene mutation.