Biologia Celular: Pesquisa e Terapia

The Search for genomic markers for coffee consumption

Roseane Maria Maia Santos  

The turnaround of the millennium brought us lots of expectation in terms of world market globalization economy, planet environment preservation and energy resources to mention a few. However, one of the most important discoveries in the science ­ eld was the unveiling of the human genome. Since then, most of the attention has turned to understanding the function of many genes and genomic fragments and their relationship with human pathophysiology. Much has been accomplished so far, such as BRCA1 and BRCA2 markers for breast cancer; HOXB13 gene for prostate cancer; APOE ‑4 for Alzheimer’s disease and many others that lead to the possibility of genetic testing to predict the risk of developing the disease, if the mutant variant gene is expressed in the individual genome.Coe is the mostly widely consumed beverage worldwide with known health bene­ ts.  e genomic approach to search for speci­ c regions in the human DNA that are highly expressed within the co ee consumers is also a recent phenomenon. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identi­ ed a number of regions of interest associated with co ee consumption. A consortium actually was created with the participation of researchers from all over the world, in an e ort to accelerate these ­ ndings. e purpose is to understand the relationship between parts of the human DNA and the increased or decreased co ee use and its correlation with the prevention of a series of diseases as type-2 diabetes, cancers and neurodegenerative diseases that account for the majority of the chronic disorders that a ict our post-millennium population.