Migraine gene breakthrough ‘could lead to new treatments’

27^th September 2010 - Scientists say they have discovered a faulty gene that could trigger migraine attacks. The team from the UK and Canada say the genetic defect could prove to be a target for new medications to treat the debilitating pain associated with migraines.

Eight million people in the UK have migraines, with more than twice as many women as men having the recurring headaches, frequently linked to nausea, dizziness and vomiting. A third of attacks are preceded by a visual disturbance known as an aura.

Faulty gene

Scientists from the University of Oxford, working with colleagues in Canada, say that if a gene called TRESK is defective, it can more easily trigger pain centres in the brain and cause a severe headache.

The team used an international selection of DNA samples from families with common migraine to identify the defective gene.

Dr Zameel Cader from the Medical Research Council Functional Genomics Unit at the University of Oxford says in a statement: “We have now made a major step forward in our understanding of why people suffer with migraine and how in certain cases, your family can literally give you a headache!

“Previous studies have identified parts of our DNA that increase the risk in the general population but have not found genes which can be directly responsible for common migraine. What we’ve found is that migraines seem to depend on how excitable our nerves are in specific parts of the brain.”

Future treatments

The scientists behind the discovery believe that the findings could lead to new medications which would be able to ‘turn down’ the pain associated with migraine.

“Finding the key player which controls this excitability will give us a real opportunity to find a new way to fight migraines and improve the quality of life for those suffering,” Cader says.

The study, which appears in Nature Medicine, was funded by the Medical Research Council, Genome Canada, Genome Quebec, Emerillon Therapeutics, the Wellcome Trust and Pfizer.

‘Important part of the puzzle’: Migraine charity

Professor Peter Goadsby, trustee of The Migraine Trust, says in an emailed statement: “The identification of a mutation in a gene for the potassium channel in a family with migraine with aura provides both a further important part of the puzzle in understanding the biology of migraine, and a novel direction to consider new therapies in this very disabling condition.”