Genome scan analyses and positional cloning strategy in IBD: successes and limitations

The past decade has witnessed a tremendous expansion of our knowledge-base of genetics of inflammatory bowel disease. To a large extent, this progress reflects the scientific innovation and impact of the human genome project, which has fueled many laboratory-based studies focusing on the molecular genetics of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. The complementary strategies of genome-wide linkage scanning and candidate gene analysis uncovered a number of genetic loci associated with IBD susceptibility. Notably, the identification of the IBD1 and IBD5 loci is a major scientific discovery. Although many issues related to the function and expression of these genes await elucidation, there is a shared optimism that pivotal clinical applications will emerge from these investigations.