この遺伝子の働き
CFTR makes a gate in the surface of cells that lets chloride out, and water follows the chloride. When the gate is broken or missing, mucus loses its water and becomes thick and sticky — clogging the lungs, blocking the pancreas and affecting the gut. Around 90 per cent of people with cystic fibrosis carry at least one copy of the same variant, F508del.
CFTR, at 7q31.2, encodes an ATP-gated chloride and bicarbonate channel. Over 2,000 variants are described; F508del, a three-base deletion causing protein misfolding and degradation, is present on roughly 70 per cent of CF alleles. Modulator therapies rescue trafficking and gating for responsive genotypes; nonsense and rare variants producing no protein remain unaddressed, which is the population editing approaches target.
Sources
- MedlinePlus Genetics, U.S. National Library of Medicine
CFTR gene ↗