Gene-environment interactions in asthma

Abstract

Studies in twins and family studies indicate that the genetic component of asthma is likely to be high,^6–9 although the individual genes identified have only modest effects and an unknown pattern of inheritance. The most common chromosomal linkage regions observed in genome-wide linkage studies are 2q14–q32, 5q31–q33, 6p21.3, 7q31, 11q13, 12q14.3–q24.31, 13q14, 14q11.2–q13, 16p21, 17q11.2, and 20p13.^1,4 Several asthma and atopy genes have been identified by positional cloning including the genes ADAM33, PHF11, GPRA, DPP10, and SPINK5,^4,10 and numerous other genes have been investigated as candidate genes based on their function.