Study Identifies New Loci Contributing to Asthma Susceptibility in Adults

A large multi-ethnic genome badociation (GWAS) study on asthma has identified new badociations potentially relevant for susceptibility to asthma in older adults of different racial backgrounds. The study "A large-scale, multi-ethnic genome-wide badociation study identifies new loci contributing to susceptibility to asthma in adults", appears in the D & D April of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Asthma affects more than 300 million people worldwide and the sensitivity to asthma is influenced by environmental and genetic risk factors. "Identifying the genetic variants badociated with asthma through GWAS is crucial in determining the genetic basis of asthma," said co-author Joanne Sordillo, ScD, MS, a research scientist at GWAS. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. "It is also necessary to understand how the genetic heterogeneity underlying the risk of asthma can be influenced by ethnicity, using large populations of multiracial patients."

The researchers conducted a GWAS study on asthma in the GERA cohort (Kaiser Permanente Northern California) on genetic epidemiological research in adults, using a total of 68,623 cases of asthma and non-asthmatic controls. The results of the study highlighted a new potential mechanism of susceptibility to asthma by the IL1RL1 gene. Researchers in the study believe this could be badociated with susceptibility to asthma via the introduction of a new binding site for microRNA, a small non-coding RNA molecule, that regulates expression of this locus. The study also reproduced 16 new badociations with susceptibility to asthma in non-Hispanic white populations, all annotated in HLA-DQA1, a major histocompatibility complex gene, or IL18R1 / IL1RL1. The study results showed no overlap of genome-wide asthma badociations between the four ethnic groups, suggesting that unique biological pathways could contribute to susceptibility to disease. Asthma in elderly people of different ethnicities.

"This study brings unique and unique badociations with asthma within four major ethnic groups and represents one of the largest GWAS of asthma conducted to date," said lead author , Ann Chen Wu, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Population Medicine at Harvard Pilgrim Health. Care Institute and Harvard Medical School.