Allergic rhinitis is the most common type of allergy and includes multiple pathologies usually caused by allergens in the air. / psdesign1 stock.adobe.com
Munich – A data badysis of nearly 900,000 people has decrypted 20 unknown risk genes for allergic rhinitis. The results are presented by researchers from the Helmholtz Center in Munich and the University of Copenhagen in Nature Genetics [20190;doi:101038/s41588-018-0157-1].
Allergic rhinitis ] is usually triggered by air allergens. Hay fever, mites and allergy to animal hair are examples. About 400 million people around the world are affected.
The goal of the EAGLE Research Alliance (EArly Genetics and Lifecourse Epidemiology) was to identify genetic differences between people with and without allergic rhinitis. In a first step, the researchers compared the genome of about 60,000 patients with allergic rhinitis with those of more than 150,000 healthy controls and identified a group of 42 genes at significant risk, some of which have already been described in Literature.
Known risk genes can be explained in about 8% of allergic rhinitis diseases. Marie Standl, Helmholtz Zentrum München
In the second step, they were able to confirm 20 previously unknown risk genes based on data from 60,000 additional people and 620,000 healthy controls. "The higher the number of participants in the study, the higher the statement we can make is sure," says Marie Standl, head of the working group of the Institute of Epidemiology Helmholtz Center for Munich. She is the first author of the current work. "The known risk genes can be explained in about 8% of allergic rhinitis diseases."
