Genetic Risk contribution to Alcoholic chronic Pancreatitis (GRAP study)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jonas Rosendahl
• Subject Area: Gastroenterology
• Term: from 2010 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 181008647

Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is a progressive inflammatory disease of the pancreas leading to irreversible damage of the organ. Incidence rates are 3.5-10 per 100.000 inhabitants and due to this considerable incidence rate CP is responsible for a rather huge debit for health care and social systems. In the Western world alcohol abuse is the predominant contributor. However, only 5 % of alcoholics develop CP. This fact and familial clustering suggest the presence of genetic susceptibility factors. To evaluate the genetic contributors to alcoholic CP we plan to conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 2.585 patients with alcoholic CP. The advent of high throughput genome-wide scanning technologies allows a systematic analysis of DNA sequence variations as demonstrated sufficiently by former studies. We established a Pan-European working party on alcoholic CP assembling researchers from all over Europe that collected 2.585 DNA-samples of well phenotyped patients with alcoholic CP. We plan to perform a case-control genome-wide association analysis. Controls arise from established studies and are already genotyped. Genotyping and bioinformatical and biostatistical analysis will be conducted using the infrastructure of the LIFE-center in Leipzig.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants