Mutations in a gene called CLN3 cause Batten disease, a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disorder of childhood. It is not a gene that anyone studies in inflammatory bowel disease.
It surfaced anyway. When researchers mapped how DNA folds within a scarce population of gut immune cells, CLN3 emerged as one of the genes whose variants associated with Crohn's disease risk appear to affect. The finding, published in Nature Genetics on Aug. 4, came from a team led by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences in London, with Cincinnati Children's and collaborators across Europe and the United States.
